[To reply replace "Aaron.Sloman.XX" with "A.Sloman"]
Response to two messages from Neil Nelson <n_nelson@pacbell.net>:
> article: 2739 in comp.lang.pop
> Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 17:42:03 -0700
> Organization: SBC Internet Services
>
> ...
> I get connection refused. Perhaps it is a temporary
> problem.
Yes, from early afternoon yesterday (07 May) till this morning
there was a problem on the MidMan network (which includes
several universities in the West Midlands area.
As you have found, this is now working again.
You should be able to connect OK now.
> I am thinking about Poplog because it includes common
> AI languages: Pop-11, Lisp, Prolog, ML, (and Scheme?),
> has a system command subsystem (hopefully for bash too
> or can be made so), and has socket capability.
The Pop-11 sysexecute procedure can be used (with sys_fork or sys_vfork)
to run arbitrary unix programs, including bash, sh, etc. The sysobey
procedure already accepts syntax to run commands in a user-specified
shell.
Both are described in the REF sysutil file,
$usepop/pop/ref/sysutil
Also browsable here
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/doc/popref/sysutil
Unfortunately most of the online poplog documentation uses a "private"
format that makes the files look nice in the Poplog editor Ved (or
XVed), by screws up in most editors e.g. emacs and nedit, though you can
read them in a unix xterm window using "more". The doc/ directory at the
poplog web site has "stripped" versions of all the files, which should
be readable in any text editor.
If you are an emacs user you may find it useful to fetch a packaged
designed to improve the interaction between emacs and poplog. It's
here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/emacs.tar.gz
There are several other packaged options for invoking unix programs from
pop-11 including this
run_unix_program
described in its own help file or
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/doc/pophelp/run_unix_program
It covers many cases, but unfortunately not all!
> The idea, and please let me know how far wrong I am, is
> to use Poplog to build an AI that would control all or
> all significant software applications on my computer
> inluding Internet access.
Sounds very ambitious.
But if you can do it in C or C++ you should be able to do it in pop-11.
E.g. I do all my work in the poplog editor Ved, which is implemented in
Pop-11, and has been extended to run arbitary unix programs and read
results in a ved buffer, to read and post mail, read and post news,
browse directories, invoke a web browser spawn X utilities, etc.
> E.g., C and C++ are very primary
> languages and it seems as if there must be a way of, say,
> building a C program in Poplog using AI techniques, and
> then compiling and executing the program via some
> instruction in Poplog. And then we should be able to do
> the same for Java, Fortran, Octave, etc. And then there
> should be a method of passing parameters or information
> between these various language subsystems.
That is not so easy. You can in principle use pop-11 to assemble program
source code and then hand a file to the relevant compiler. Running the
resulting program from inside pop-11 may be easy or difficult or
impossible (e.g. Java, C++ probably can't be done though you can always
run programs as separate unix processes and communicate with them via
pipes or sockets).
However, automatic program synthesis is a very old and difficult area of
AI. E.g. see
Charles Rich and Richard C. Waters. The Programmers Apprentice.
Frontier Series. ACM Press, 1990.
There are probably lots more things to read, but I don't have a
bibliography. You could try searching in google, etc. for
program synthesis
automatic programming
programmer's apprentice
etc.
Second message
Neil Nelson <n_nelson@pacbell.net> writes:
> Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 20:06:04 -0700
> Organization: SBC Internet Services
>
> I was just looking the Sneps package that is looking
> for CLISP or CMU LISP or some others. It does not
> appear to be directly mentioning Lisp under Pop-11.
> Would it be the case that a package running under
> these other very common implementations of Lisp will
> run without problem under Pop-11 Lisp?
Usually a small amount of work is required to port programs from one
lisp implementation to another, depending on how complex the program is.
Poplog lisp implements most of common lisp as defined in the second
edition of Common Lisp the Language (G.Steele) but not all. For
details look in
$usepop/pop/lisp/help/bugs
also accessible as
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/doc/lisphelp/bugs
I hope that helps.
Aaron
==
====
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
EMAIL A.Sloman AT cs.bham.ac.uk (ReadATas@please !)
PAPERS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/
FREE TOOLS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html
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