[MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 02:19 AM 6/2/99 -0700, I personally witnessed Mark Gritter jumping up to
say:
>
>But a MUD doesn't need "precise communication"!

Yes it does. When I give the computer a command, I want it to understand
*precisely* what I want and get busy doing it. I don't want to type for a
long period of time, and I don't want to be encouraged to use confusing
words because the computer can handle them half the time. I want to command
the computer EXACTLY, every time. 

Natural language FAILS THIS TEST. We all know it fails this test. My mother
thinks "I don't want any" means "I don't feel like getting up to get it so
you should go bring it to me". My father thinks "I'm not hungry" means "I
only want a *half* pound steak". Half of my friends think "I'm busy to go
to the movies" means "Why don't you come over". (The other half think it
means "I don't like you".) 

Language is inherently ambiguous. If I had a fantastic day yesterday, a
terrific day today, and I have a wonderful day tomorrow, which day was better? 

>I agree wholeheartedly that users want consistency and "intuitiveness"--- but 
>I don't believe that they really want to learn a different set of conventions 
>from what they already know.

Mark, I hate to tell you this, but the population at large knows dick about
the conventions of natural language. They can't spell, their grammar is
atrocious, and their vocabulary is extremely limited. While NLP may be a
really nifty project to work on, it just plain isn't something users are
going to be able to work well with. 

-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com 
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/ 
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