[alicebot-archcomm] Attributes vs Elements

[Kim Sullivan]

> Are the problems severe enough to justify proposing a change?

If pattern matching was done char-by char and not word by word (a minor
change IMHO), comparing variables could be done with AIML categories and
srais alone. Currently, it can be done if the textual variables' characters
are separated with spaces - just like in the integer addition example on
Style. Note, that any string that has been processed like that (characters
separated by spaces and spaces replaced with a two-char string, eg. 'SP')
can be converted back to 'normal' with the current functionality already.

Maybe we should consider changing that - either change the spec for the
matching algorithm (which is fully backwards compatible with the current
matching), or introduce a way to 'characterize' strings (could be done
easily if there were custom substitution groups as proposed looong ago).

I'm not saying that having a feature to easily compare two variables is a
bad thing (esp. from a botmaster perspective), just that I'd like AIML to
accomplish it with as little additional features as possible.

Just my 2 cents.

Kim