[comp.ai.digest] AI Languages

vierhout@swivax.UUCP (Paul Vierhout) (06/14/88)

Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 10:03 EDT
From: Paul Vierhout <mcvax!swivax!vierhout@uunet.UU.NET>
Organisation: Sociaal Wetenschappelijke Informatica
	      University of Amsterdam
	      Herengracht 196
	      1016 BS Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Phone:        +31 20 245365 or +31 20 5252066 (from 1 July 1988).
To: NICK@ai.ai.mit.edu
Subject: AI Languages
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
In-Reply-To: <19880527050431.8.NICK@MACH.AI.MIT.EDU>
Organization: SWI, UvA, Amsterdam
cc: 

AIlanguage features:
old: procedure-data equivalence
less old: nondeterminism, 'streams'
		,unification,OPS5 pattern matching, 
shell-like: ability to specify frames and/or rules, and possibly control
promises: abstract models of cognitive tasks like the Interpretation Models
	of Breuker and Wielinga (SWI-UvA, Amsterdam) for knowledge acquisition,
	or the six generic tasks of Chandrasekaran (Ohio State Univ.).
Not at all an exhaustive list; shouldn't an AIlanguage ideally exhaustively
offer all features currently available ? 

dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (06/14/88)

From: mtune!ihnp4!utah-cs!gr.utah.edu!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wsccs!dharvey@att.att.com
To: comp-ai-digest@unix.SRI.COM
Path: wsccs!dharvey
>From: ihnp4!utah-cs!gr.utah.edu!uplherc!wsccs!dharvey (David Harvey) 
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: AI Languages
Summary: Features of an AI language???
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 88 03:33 EDT
References: <19880527050431.8.NICK@MACH.AI.MIT.EDU>
Lines: 34


In article <19880527050431.8.NICK@MACH.AI.MIT.EDU>, Pat Hayes writes:
> Date: Mon, 16 May 88 13:29 EDT
> From: hayes.pa@Xerox.COM
> Subject: Re: AIList Digest   V7 #1
> In-reply-to: AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis <AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>'s
>  message of Sat, 14 May 88  21:50 EDT
> To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
> cc: hayes.pa@Xerox.COM
> 
> I was fascinated by the correspondence between Gabe Nault and Mott Given in
> vol7#1, concerning "an artifical intelligence language ... something more than
> lisp or xlisp."    Can anyone suggest a list of features which a programming
> language must have which would qualify it as an "artificial intelligence
> language"  ? 
> 
> Pat Hayes

You wanted an opinion, so here it is!  There probably isn't such a thing
as list of 'must' features for an AI language!  There are things I would
'like' it to have though.  The first is that it must allow the action to
proceed anywhere (ie any Lisp function (procedure), and Prolog
predicate, or any FORTH word).  The second is that it must be at an
abstract level that allows me to forget about what the computer is doing
and concentrate on what I am doing.  Obviously, there is no such
language in existence that does this yet.  So we latch onto anything
that even closely resembles this ideal.  Take your pick, Smalltalk,
Lisp, Prolog.  One person's dream is bound to be someone else's
nightmare!

dharvey @ wsccs (David A Harvey)
I am responsible for Nobody, and Nobody is responsible for me.
Behind the Mormon Curtain.