> All this should help revive interest especially in Pop-11, which
> many users think is far better for teaching AI to novices than Java
> or Prolog, and probably more approachable to many (ordinary) people
> than Lisp, though lisp has many of the same benefits.
Some ideas, that are perhaps very wrong :
Although poplog is free, mature, stable, multiplatformed and with no
apparent substitute (competition) for it's speciality, it has a poor following.
Why ? The success of the mediocre 'Win-tel' is due to its steady
'progress path'. Upgradeability makes for confidence.
Perceived progress is needed.
Having started, with great enthusiasm, (the inet-available poplog
material) I surged ahead at encouraging speed until I hit a chasm.
I have no intention of building a one-man bridge across this chasm.
Rather I want to contribute to extending the hi-way which starts out so
well, to allow large numbers of users to progress. Building a route to
progress is perhaps feasible with collaborative efforts, via inet ?
The problem's solution seems very simple to me.
The 'algorithm' seems trivial and has a simple analogy to transplanting
cabbage-ettes. (# Or learning a natural language)
Consider this task:
1. A field exists prepared ready to transplant 25 cabbage seedlings,
in a premarked 5 by 5 matrix.
2. You are limited to 3 'containers' of water per (24 hour) day to supply
the cabbage-ettes.
3. the water need/consumption is such that a single seedling planted
in the middle (alone) would need 2 'containers' to survive the first day.
Proceedure:
1. Plant 3 seedling in the middle, in a 'close triangle'.
* adjacent plants share the water which disipates in the ground.
(# when learning a new language, the 4 'related' words: "I am a man",
is less of a cognitive load than learning 4 unrelated words: "a is the am")
2. as plants are added to the perimeter of the 'becoming established'
adjacent group. Note:
* the perimeter is increasing (space of possible extentions)
* earlier planted seedings are extending their roots to be able to
skip a day of watering (# skip a period of revision)
* deeper reaching roots grown on early transplants are able to access
earlier applied water which has descended into the soil below the
newer-seedlings' range.
(# subtle - previously unseen - connections assist in learning)
The algorithm of learning or planting out seedlings is simply:
revise sufficiently to never loose a plant.
This requires not enlarging into the 'space of possible extentions' beyond
the available water. New plants/concepts should be supported by
existing/older neighbours and not be planted in isolation.
From memory [since I haven't looked at poplog for a month(s) ]
the hi-way degenerated to a chasm after the 'river2' project.
Yes, the close coupled cabbage-patch model breaks down, when you
want to teach how to program pop-11 to search a problem space as in
SOLVER, SOLVEMS, SOLVEMS.P ... (are these the right file ids ? ).
In this case we have islands of independent knowledge - cabbage,
tomato and onion patches/islands.
The 'revise sufficiently to never loose a plant' algorithm applies individually
to each island: state space, state space navigation, pop-11 implementation.
But confusing cross-talk must be avoided. ie. state space should be
introduced (and established) independant of pop-11.
Superficial handling of several topics in the same tutorial is equivalent
to spreading the water too thinly for any plants to survive. Multiple
tutorials, each "having a stab", don't add value cummulatively.
I'm guessing that several potential users have and will continue to start
off learning poplog's facilities, but abandon before reaching critical
fluency. What a tragic waste.
I propose that the tutorial material for: 'how to search a state space';
be cleaned up - very formally. It would be fruitfull to analyse what
makes the previous tutorial material so good; capture and formalise
this knowledge, and use it (where possible) for later tutorials.
Lets 'read from the score' rather than improvise. Forget art, use science.
As with one-pass compilers where no forward references are possible,
or 'just in time' manufacturing where the required stuff is available
soon before it's needed, or serious mathematical tutors where the
material is introduced in a strict order: I believe a formal structuring
of tutorial material could/should be applied with great benefit to
building the future user base.
-- Chris Glur.
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