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To: Gib Bogle who wrote (4071)	2/7/2006 4:51:31 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218315

But you've gotta admit that them fancy new-fangled programming systems are a heck of a lot more productive. When I switched from COBOL to a 4th-generation language, I was able to create just as many bugs in a week as I used to in a whole month! <wink, wink>

To: Gib Bogle who wrote (4071)	2/7/2006 11:11:33 PM
From: Crabbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218315

"We will always be pushing the boundaries of what's possible, and this has to be done by live humans, not by computer programs - unless you believe that a program can be more clever than the programmer who created it. If so, I have a bridge you might be" First of all i don't need a bridge in New Zealand. Second I agree that "we will always be pushing the boundaries of whats possible." I disagree that this has to be done by humans. Of course programs can be more clever than the programmer that created them, for a small example world weather modeling. No programmer however clever and smart he is can even start to model the weather. Another example, no programmer on IBM's Deep Blue chess program can possibly hope to beat it. What a ridiculous idea to think that programs can't be more clever than the programmer that wrote them. BTW you validate my point, "I write a lot of programs as part of my work, as do the people around me (we are called engineers, or scientists, not programmers)." 30 years ago, you might have written a FORTRAN program, more likely you would have described the parameters to a programmer and he would have written it. In not to many years you will describe the parameters of what you want and a computer, not a programmer will write the program. Basically compilers like COBAL have done that for years, it was just that writing the parameters was a specialized job in itself. You consider yourself an engineer/scientist, who writes his own programs, could you write in assembler? Programming with a compiler is really just describing what you want in abbreviated terms and letting the compiler handle the programming. Each new evolving computer language, there are more than 2500 languages, tries either to give greater control of the computer, or simpler methods of getting the program written. Interfaces such as "Visual" programs have is one example, you just drag and drop your program controls. Then you describe in structured terms what you want done when that control is activated. As computers learn english, you will need less and less structure to the description of what you want. In many respects computers are already self programming. If they were not you would have required years of study to learn how in addition to the years of study you put into your primary occupation. And, then you would require most of your time to write a program to do some simple tasks to aid in your profession, things programmers have already done for you. r

To: Gib Bogle who wrote (4071)	2/8/2006 9:19:50 AM
From: Crabbe	Respond to of 218315

Microsoft Research: Natural Language Processing Hits High Gear microsoft.com "Despite the challenges, natural language processing, or NLP, is widely regarded as a promising and critically important endeavor in the field of computer research. The general goal for most computational linguists is to imbue the computer with the ability to understand and generate natural language so that eventually people can address their computers through text as though they were addressing another person. The applications that will be possible when NLP capabilities are fully realized are impressive--computers would be able to process natural language, translating languages accurately and in real time, or extracting and summarizing information from a variety of data sources, depending on the users' requests. For example, imagine you needed to correspond with a non-English speaking colleague in Japan and that part of your message had to include data that is available only in Spanish. If NLP researchers succeed in their mission, someday you will be able to query that database in natural language, asking, "What were the profits for the Spanish division of the company last year?" The computer would analyze your query, retrieve and summarize the relevant data, and provide you the answer in English. Then you could compose your email message in English, and your computer would instantly translate it to Japanese before sending it on to your colleague." Microsoft intends to succeed, sounds an awful lot like something close to self programming Another article aaai.org "The value to our society of being able to communicate with computers in everyday "natural" language cannot be overstated. Imagine asking your computer "Does this candidate have a good record on the environment?" or "When is the next televised National League baseball game?" Or being able to tell your PC "Please format my homework the way my English professor likes it." Commercial products can already do some of these things, and AI scientists expect many more in the next decade. One goal of AI work in natural language is to enable communication between people and computers without resorting to memorization of complex commands and procedures. Automatic translation---enabling scientists, business people and just plain folks to interact easily with people around the world---is another goal. Both are just part of the broad field of AI and natural language, along with the cognitive science aspect of using computers to study how humans understand language." Again this sounds close to self programming if you can just say "You know how I like to format posts on SiliconInvestor." and it will be written in my style. or say write it in Gib's style and it will look like you wrote it." You could just as easily tell it to calculate all the load capacities at each point on a bridge, specify a few parameters and get your results, kinda like telling an intern to do it. r r