[alicebot-developer] The wildcard-filling problem

[Gary Poster]

On Oct 6, 2005, at 8:18 AM, Helio Perroni Filho wrote:

> --- Gary Poster <gary@modernsongs.com> escreveu:
>
>
>>> That's interesting, but how do you deal with the
>>> case where an element in the original sentence is
>>> split in two -- for example, changing "he's" to
>>> "he is"?
>>>
>>
>> Heh, looks like my memory was a bit off. Here's an
>> excerpt from the pertinent part of the docs:
>>
>
> Now I get it... I think. ^_^' I presume a given
> sentence token is never going to be "substituted" more
> than once, right? Because I was looking for a solution
> that allowed the user to line up substitutions, so he
> could create a configuration like:
>
> ((" waht", " what"),
>  (" what's ", " what is "))
>
> An the bot would correctly normalize a sentence
>
> "Waht's the matter?"
>
> into
>
> "WHAT IS THE MATTER"

Ah, yes, good idea.  No, I didn't contemplate that.

>> The GPL license of Dr. Wallace's files meant I
>> could never really use my code for work, so I put it
>> aside for now.
>>
>
> That's certainly true if you used GPL'ed code on your
> work, but if you simply created a "clean room"
> implementation of the AIML standard, I'm not sure the
> GPL applies. Actually the AIML working draft makes no
> mention to licences at all, so I guess it is an open
> standard, which does not rule out closed-source
> implementations.

True (and thanks also to Dr. Wallace for his similar reply).  Mine  
was definitely a clean room implementation of an interpreter, but the  
main *practical* value of AIML, in my opinion, is Dr. Wallace's very  
large database.  I could conceive of other designs for the basic AIML  
ideas, but this is a very reasonable one, and it has data.  If I  
didn't want to use Dr. Wallace's database, I would only use AIML for  
inspiration, and not care much if I actually could call the project  
an "AIML engine".

So, AIML is a gift from Dr. Wallace that I appreciate, but I can't  
use it at the moment the ways I wanted to.  I'm not sure I could  
honestly claim to have written a "clean room" version of the basic  
normalizing substitutions, since I've looked at the GPL set; I'm also  
not sure if I really want to spend the time duplicating effort in a  
more friendly license.

Gary