Re: Does natural language skill translate to programming skill?

"Aidan" == Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Aidan> I’m happy to say Google does natural language processing,
Aidan> yes. Cf. the big different in results between these two
Aidan> queries:

Aidan> http://www.google.de/search?q=bart&hl=de
Aidan> http://www.google.ca/search?q=bart&hl=en

If that's the case, then the locale library already did that decades
ago. The locale library can display a program's messages in different
languages, and even format numbers in the localized ways
(e.g. $1,000,000.00 vs. CHF1.000.000,00). No, no AI is involved. No
NLP. Just some translators pre-translating all the messages that
appear in a program from English to the local language, and some
programmers specifying rules for formating numbers, dates, etc.


Aidan> I’m not sure why one would question it without heavy
Aidan> personal investment in pre-AI-winter-based approaches to
Aidan> NLP.

Sorry, I won't accept this as NLP. Uses different database (views) to
evaluate different queries (based on the "hl" parameters) doesn't
classify as NLP.

As for how they populate the database, that involves language
recognition. But that's not NLP either. A simple histogram of the
frequency of each Unicode character on a page can already identify the
language being used in that page. Other techniques, such as checking
if the words appear in dictionaries of various languages, can help to
improve the accuracy. Once the language of a page (or a paragraph,
depending on which level of granularity Google chooses) has been
identified, Google can then populate it into the database for that
particular language.



>> About 1987 I supervised a student, who did his diploma thesis
>> on "application of conceptual graphs". His program written in
>> Prolog was able to read in laws, and a user could enter an
>> individual problem (case) related to this law, and the program
>> solved the problem. The results were impressive.

Aidan> Where can I buy this technology, or some development of it?

Not easily found in the market != non-existent.


Aidan> Or did it turn out to be unmarketable,

Usually, highly domain-specific and professional software are not sold
as shrink-wrapped packages on the shelves of a shop. You have to go
out to source them.

Tell me which shop sells me a package of the CAD/CAM software that
Airbus was using to build and manufacture the A380? Where can I buy
it, or some development of it?

If *I* cannot find it, does that mean such technology doesn't exist,
and hence I should conclude that Airbus developed the A380 completely
in manual ways?



Aidan> since there was such a strictly limited subset of German
Aidan> understood by it that phrasing the cases was not any easier
Aidan> than formulating SQL queries?

SQL is not the only possible way of querying a database. SQL is only
good for *relational* databases, not all databases in general.


>> But it is easier to parse German texts than English ones.

That's true.


--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
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