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- Newsgroups: comp.ai
- Path: sparky!uunet!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!csgi64!daniel
- From: daniel@csgi64.dcs.leeds.ac.uk (D N Crow)
- Subject: Re: AI Programing Language
- Organization: School of Computer Studies, University of Leeds
- References: <95957@bu.edu> <1992Sep15.025411.19354@src.umd.edu> <1992Sep15.133822.11154@mercury.unt.edu>
- Message-ID: <1992Sep15.155140.28927@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
- Sender: daniel@csgi64 (D N Crow)
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:51:40 GMT
- X-Posted-From: csgi64.leeds.ac.uk
- NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu
- Lines: 56
-
- In article <1992Sep15.133822.11154@mercury.unt.edu>, danny@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Danny Faught) writes:
- > In article <1992Sep15.025411.19354@src.umd.edu> clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles C. Lin) writes:
- > >In article <95957@bu.edu>, robrod@csa.bu.edu writes:
- > >>
- > >> I am just starting to look at AI (I am a senior Undergraduate in CS). I
- > >> read that the new movement in AI programming was to move away from
- > >> Languages like LISP and Prolog and into Object oriented languages like
- > >> C++, Smaltalk, etc. Is it worth studying LISP and Prolog anymore?
- > >> What should someone concentrate on for AI programming?
- > >>
- > [lines deleted]
- > >... C++ since OOPs seem to be getting more
- > >popular and it's becoming more widely available.
- >
- > I know C well, and I've learned a little about C++. It seems to me that
- > C++ is better than C in terms of software engineering (though it
- > introduces some intricacies that may make the code more mysterious).
- > But why is C++ and OOP in general supposed to be well-suited to AI
- > applications?
- >
-
- AI often involves modelling real world objects and phenomena. An object-
- oriented approach is therefore often suitable.
-
- > >
- > > For example, functional language folks will tell you that
- > >languages such as ML, Miranda, and Haskell are the better
- > >"functional" languages (and say that LISP isn't even one)
- > >and that these languages are better for learning programming
- > >than some language like C.
- >
- > I used ML briefly, and it seemed to be very similar to LISP except that
- > the syntax was more palatable, i.e., no parentheses from hell. I liked it.
- >
- > --
- > Danny Faught danny@ponder.csci.unt.edu
- > Save this sig - I'll be famous someday
-
- I have just finished my PhD in AI/HCI, which involved writting a fairly
- large scale Pascal AI program. This is basically a blackboard architecture
- with several pattern recognition, machine learning and expert system
- components. All implemented under VAX/VMS in VMS Pascal. The reasons for
- this are largely historical. In retrospect, I would have used C++ given
- a free choice.
-
- The biggest advantage to using LISP/Prolog is the large amount of freely
- available code that has been written in those languages that solves known
- AI problems. I certainly had to re-implement several "wheels" as a result
- of choosing Pascal. Having said that, the bulk of my code (in terms of
- number of lines written) dealt with file handling and other i/o. For
- this sort of task a procedural language like Pascal or C is at least as
- well suited as Lisp or Prolog.
-
- --
- Dan Crow
- daniel@scs.leeds.ac.uk
-