On Sun, Jul 07, 2013 at 04:03:39PM -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: > On 7/7/13 2:44 PM, Walter Bright wrote: > >>This started with you claiming that Siri is just Eliza with more > >>memory. That's > >>inaccurate to say the least. > > > >I argue it is dead on. I don't see a fundamental difference. > > Consider someone at a 1970s level of compiler technology coming to > you and telling you in all seriousness: "Yeah, I tried your D > language. A few more keywords and tricks. Compiler supports lines > over 80 columns. Other than that, it has nothing over Fortran77." > Knowing the wealth of research and development in programming > languages since then, you'd know that that's just an ignorant > statement and would not even take the time to get offended. > > Similarly, it would be an ignorant thing to say that Siri is just a > larger Eliza. There is a world of difference between Eliza's and > Siri's approaches. In fact the difference is even larger than > between 1970s compilers and today's ones. For a simple example, in > the 1990s NLP has definitely departed from rule-based models to > statistical models. I don't know of a similarly large change in > programming language technology. [...]
I look forward to the day programs will be written by statistical models. Random failure FTW! :-P Oh wait, it's already been done: http://p-nand-q.com/humor/programming_languages/java2k.html :-P T -- Doubtless it is a good thing to have an open mind, but a truly open mind should be open at both ends, like the food-pipe, with the capacity for excretion as well as absorption. -- Northrop Frye