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I am new to programming and would like to create a chatbot(I know a little about arithmetic, statistic, linear algebra but no knowledge yet in ML/DL/AI theory. And as I'm starting, I haven't done any projects yet. But the final goal I set myself is to be able to create a chatbot with artificial intelligence. But after some research, I saw that it will take me quite a long time.
So I set myself an intermediate level. One just to create a chatbot that can send and reply to messages automatically. To this end, the programming languages that have been recommended to me are: Python, Ruby, PhP, Java... but (in view of my final objective : creating a chatbot with AI) I would like to know which programming language will be more useful and more appropriate for me?
[RE]: Given my situation, I haven't started a project yet (I'm looking for the right language to be able to get started). Yes, I know I'm repeating myself but that's why I can't present a community-specific problem. Besides since I just learned that my question is a matter of opinion and that it does not respect the rules of the platform, I humbly ask the moderators to remove it.
Thanks !
Hey that’s an interesting project to do.
As you are more focused on the artificial intelligence I would stick with the biggest and most common ML language:
Python - this is currently the biggest Machine Learning language and allows you to use open source tensorflow for your ML models.
I think what you will find interesting and challenging, once you go into more complex sentences is dealing with natural language processing, Python has the nltk (Natural Language Toolkit) that’s a good place to start and learn from.
Once you have gotten a possible basic python console chat system working you might want to show it off in a nicer presented way so more so you could wrap it in a simple python api and call upon it using a small JavaScript web browser chat application. Although your more interested in the first part so I’d suggest go with python.
I’d start off by trying to make the ai respond to predefined strings and then go from there. It’s worth nothing there is a number of open-source GitHub projects that have ML and Natural Language Processing bots so have a little look around for inspiration. https://github.com/topics/chatbot
Also fyi if your writing a report on this doing detailed investigative work in what tooling and language to use is an important part of your report and you should gather information and sources about usage etc and then reason as to why.
Hope this points you in the correct direction and good luck 👍
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I'm actually working for a little company of 10 people on the area of solar panels solutions in Chile. Am working on linux since 20 years now. When I studied programing I studied a lot with Eiffel which I found really a great language. Since, I'm frustrated from a language to another missing a lot of great concepts it offers like
real object (no string != String; ...)
multi-inheritance
polymorphism
genericity
contract.
Working now with Java because
its mostly free
the community for tutorials and helps is huge
its multi-platform
I'm looking for the pros & cons to convince the instances of my hierarchy (basically talking about justifying the price of the licences which are 1500$=>1y and 2000$=>2y) and to be a bit secured that I don't pretend I'll go with a solution I'll regret at term because it will be hard to get the support I need to get my solutions working. Is ISE Eiffel reliable for production use? Will I have to get hours of pain making work a solution?
What are the pros & cons?
Pros
Concepts helping me to write real good quality code (multi-inheritance, polymorphism, genericity, contract)
Pleasure to develop with such good tools
Quality and reliability of produced code
...
Cons
Poor community, meaning few tutorials
I'm not good in C so digging into the implementation of C libraries is something which will cost me (and to the company)
Price is high and has to be justified
My Curriculum will not be as well as if I have years of experience in Java
Formation of other programmers won't be easy if as most of them dont know these concepts
...
I also work in a small company and we have decided 2 years ago to make the move to Eiffel. We had the exact same questions as you are stating. We now have official licenses and support. I studied the Eiffel Web Framework a long time (from 2014) and knew that the only good way to be able to state that it can be used in production is to just do it.
So that is what we did and now the software is in production and working robust, safe and performs well. In production are web API's based on HAL+JSON and created with the EiffelWeb Framework and a self written framework extended with reusable domain components created for the companies goals.
So ISE Eiffel is certainly reliable for production use and the support is outstanding.
You won't have any hours of pain as you call it, but when you write software with EiffelStudio you get many hours of joy, but all the other aspects of software engineering will be as hard as ever ;-).
About your other cons, my two cents are:
For a curriculum, more important is who you are as a person and if you fit in the current team. In my opinion when someone is educated in a model driven approach and acts and thinks like that, can use that knowledge quickly on any environment. That for me personally is more important then being good at one specific programming language. Although I understand that in some cases we also need specialists to get a job done quickly. It all is a matter of personal choice, both are needed in the industry.
If you need other programmers that get in the team doing this, you can only work with people that want that. I know from experience, that some people want it and other people just won't. My advice is not to put energy into the people that do not want it. Work with the technology, show that it works and maybe they get convinced, else seek for others that do see this.
If the management is not behind the decision to work not only with Eiffel, but also with the ideas of Bertrand Meyer, then don't do it. You will find yourself always fighting against it, while it is very hard for others (not software related) to understand. It is a matter of trust, when there is no trust (at both sides) -> don't do it.
We now also get questions about how the Eiffel environment is handling vulnerabilities, which are compared to the way e.g. Linux and Java communities are handling that. Eiffel is not used as much as those technologies, but the Eiffel software itself is build on the strong quality core of the Eiffel method and language. This can simply not be compared with other environments. But again others do not understand this, so how is this going to be addressed? This is an example where you run into when you will be using the Eiffel technology.
A lot of words, but the plain answer to your question is just : YES it can!
It's certainly reliable enough for production use.
You may well have to write wrappers for C-libraries, depending upon exacly what you want to do.
You mention web services. There is a good web framework. But there is no support (that I know of) for W3C XML schemas, for instance.
I would suggest you try writing a small prototype using the GPL edition (you won't be distributing the prototype, so you will not be restricted by the GPL). Then you should be able to assess for yourself the suitability for your usage.
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Currently learning IOS App development using a the big nerd ios programming book and I was on a chapter of the book that focuses heavily on CoreGraphics. I found it hard to grasp so I went through the chapter multiple times and it became slightly easier but I still wasn't 100% confident with it so decided to find a nice core graphics tutorial.
I found myself doing the ray wenderlich core graphics tutorial, it's quite good but I still noticed there where somethings I didn't quite get. Often found myself asking questions like "why did I just do that?", "how am I suppose to know what floating point number to put there?".
Anyway I woke up at 5am and have been reading various posts and webites for the last 2 and half hours. I stumbled across a post that stated:
The basics of graphics programming is necessary
C++ is a must
Linear Algebra is a must
Firm knowledge of coordinate system transformation is a must
How true is the above?
I mean I remember in the past when learning ruby/rails I ended up needing to pick up various other things in order to be able to build complete websites. On my journey to learn IOS App development I'm starting to see the same thing happen.
I've stopped at chapter 6 of this big nerd book to focus on core graphics and now I'm not even half way through the core graphics tutorial I'm following and may need to stop and do a tutorial on linear algebra amongst other things.
I'd like to do what's really necessary. Stackoverflow is my go to place in these types of situations. I'd like to know from some of the experienced IOS App developers, what do you recommend in this situation?
Is there a set guide you recommend I follow?
I promised myself I was going to learn IOS Dev properly with no short cuts as understand things thoroughly has made the experience quite enjoyable.
I came across a linear algebra video course on khanacademy. But I'd really only like to put time into what's necessary. I work full time, currently trying to make the transition from networking into the web development industry so I can naturally put time into it rather than having to sacrifice evenings and weekends.
My aim is to be able to build a fully fledged app. E.g. Like twitter, facebook, tagged. I won't be doing any fancy graphics just the kind you'd see on the sites I mentioned.
Your advice will be greatly appreciated thanks.
The basics of graphics programming is necessary
Technically true, but Core Graphics is a great way to learn (at least 2D) graphics programming.
C++ is a must
False.
Linear Algebra is a must
It's involved, but you can ignore the man behind the curtain 90+% of the time.
The only time I can remember the matrix nature of affine transformations becoming important was the time I answered a question about infinite rotation—and even then, another answerer provided a solution that didn't rely on matrix knowledge.
Apple's own documentation says:
“You can use either set of functions [making matrixes directly from numbers vs. geometric transformations] without understanding anything about matrix math. However if you want to understand what Quartz does when you call one of the transform functions, read ‘The Math Behind the Matrices.’”
I would only add that if you do read “The Math Behind the Matrices” and it's lost on you, don't worry about it—just try it again in a month. At some point, you'll read that chapter and it'll make sense.
Geometry and trigonometry are much more important as a Core Graphics user than linear algebra. And the trig you need to know is pretty straightforward.
Firm knowledge of coordinate system transformation is a must
Again, true, but Core Graphics is a great way to learn it.
Is there a set guide you recommend I follow?
The Core Graphics Programming Guide.
If any part of it stumps you, open Xcode and start doing it. Pound on it 'til it works. Make sliders to adjust parameters (e.g., any of scale, translate, rotation angle, and skew) and fields to display them and see how the input affects the output. Experiment with blend modes.
Definitely experiment with blend modes.
And if you ever get completely stuck, you can always come back to SO and ask a question about it.
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I am a computer science student and I am going to work on an artificial intelligence project which will compose a musical tune according to the genre and mood inputs. Are the algorithms to be used for this project likely to be very resource-consuming? Would it make any difference (in terms of speed) if I choose to go with Java rather than C++? (Note : I know only these two languages and I am more comfortable with Java than C++.)
NB : Sorry for my poor English. If someone can, please clean up this post wherever necessary. Thanks.
Go with Java since you are more comfortable with it. That will allow you to concentrate on solving the problem, not the programming. Maybe C++ would end with a faster program, maybe not, but getting there will be slower and you don't categorically state that the program must be blazingly fast.
The resource consumption is way more influenced by the algorithmic approach than the language chosen. If you are comfortable with Java, program your application in that language - even though a C++ implementation might be 10% faster.
That being said, you might be interested with Artificial Intelligence API's for Java.
In my mind, the language mostly associated with AI is Lisp.
See the answers to Why is Lisp used for AI? - top voted mentions this was the case in the 60s and 70s, but these days dynamic languages are used (ruby, python and such).
It looks to me like you're at the proof-of-concept stage of your project. I'd use whatever language your most comfortable with. Well written Java code will run a lot faster then poorly written C.
I would use Common Lisp for a project like this. If you don't know Lisp, I would learn it for this type of project. It would be a great learning experience and since you are a CS student, it will only help you. Lisp is a language that can be a real eye opener.
I did a similar AI project a couple of years ago. I don't know what solution you will be implementing, but AI programs can generally be both resource consuming and may take a long time to run, but on the other hand, you'll need a language you're familiar with to get it done in time.
Therefore, my advice is that if you feel you know C++ (or C), go with one of them. If you don't know them, then consider carefully the time you will need to invest in learning a new language before choosing.
If you're starting from scratch, use whatever you know best. If you want to use established libraries to speed up development, you might want to investigate that first - but Java is certain to have some.
In your shoes, I'd pick Java for sure.
I'd go with Clojure for the following reasons:
It's a Lisp, and Lisps are great languages for AI development (partly historical, but also for some real concrete reasons - see this thread and this thread)
Clojure runs on the JVM and has great Java interop, so you can exploit all the great Java AI libraries (e.g. Weka) plus you already have some experience of the Java environment
JVMs have excellent optimizing JIT compilers nowadays, for all practical purposes you will get performance as fast as C/C++ for this kind of application.
My advice is design everything you need first, every ADT, every algorithm class, hierarchy, everything. This kind of project/programming could be really hard to design in C/C++ family of languages, maybe you could choose other language with less string typed philosophy. So i encourage you with using a language designed for this kind of problem, better suited to your application, functional paradigm ex: LISP, logical paradigm ex: PROLOG or something like that.
My 3rd year dissertation project was an implementation of heuristics for cellular network radio frequency allocation. I chose Java over C++ because it allowed me to visualize the results much easier than if I'd used C++. I don't believe the performance would have been significantly different in C++ - the complexity factor of your algos is going to be the biggest factor probably.
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Second Life is fun to play with, and some developers are creating content there, but I was wondering what useful resources (if any) are available in Second Life for professional software developers.
Discussion groups
Education/training
Vendor support
Development-related presentations or demos
Professional contacts
To clarify: I'm not really looking for information on developing stuff for use in Second Life (although those answers are welcome). I am looking for pointers to stuff in SL that programmers would find useful for their real-life work.
They have a site about some of these uses: http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/api/
and some pages on the language they kind of grew: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal
Like you I find playing around with SL pretty interesting for recreational coding. One of the experiences that made me think there was something to it was trying to code a working clock in a sandbox (a general building area in SL). Other avatars would walk past and make suggestions and as there's a fair few coders around it soon turned into an interesting collaborative effort. If only it was that simple in RL. Some things just work really neatly in SL - I once implemented a swarming algorithm using a flock of 'birds' as the objects (which gives a whole new take on oops).
As to resources - assuming you're beyond basic coding level then you should be able to figure most things out from the LSL Wiki - http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal.
There's an ebook - "Scripting Recipes for Second Life" by Jeff Heaton which covers the basics in a reasonably well laid out way. It's only a few dollars but probably only worth it if you've not done a great deal of coding elsewhere. There's also regular classes held in-world, but I believe most of these are at a pretty basic level.
For groups I've always found the Scripters of Second Life group very helpful with a lot of people generally on it. There's one called simply Scripts which is quite active too.
A couple of words of warning, LSL, whilst Turing-complete is pretty broken in several areas, lacks modern program constructs (and some older ones - like arrays!) and much of the 'black-art' of LSL is knowing how to work around the limitations, With the advent of Mono though this is likely to be a decreasing issue.
Also there does seem to be an assumption by the Lindens that if you want to do any 'heavy-lifting' code you'll do it on a server off-world and call and return results to/from SL. This isn't helped by the XMP-RPC implementation being very broken, although HTTP works fine (and generally better than might be expected).
I vaguely remember Dr Dobbs running some sort of ongoing "Programmer's Island" thingy in SL, but I can't find the reference right now.
Apparently some sort of "virtual conference" for software developers.
As far I'm concerned, I'm trying to contribute to the OpenSim project which is a OpenSource clone of the SecondLife server infrastructure, written in C# and Mono.
OpenSim is SL like, enhanced with many additional script commands, open grid protocols, with customized modules and plugins. It definitely worth a look if you dont already heard about it.
ControlBreak suggested this in a comment (I'm promoting it to an answer):
You can visit Microsoft Island. Presentations of new products are done regularly - http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=663#more-663
IBM, Microsoft and Sun are pretty active in Second Life and sometimes there are interesting presentations/demos to see. Some of those are great for networking and meeting people from those companies which work on products you're interested in.
There are several groups for Java, PHP and several other programming languages apart from LSL, however IMO they're not as good resource as other non-SL resources. You can get your questions answered more quickly on StackOverflow or IRC.
IBM held several interesting programming competitions - there was something with robots finding a way out of the maze by IBM, there are also robot wars and some other programming competitions in SL, however they are all LSL-oriented.
I think I saw a beginner PHP class once, so if you're interested in learning programming language from start, try searching events and you might find something; however those are pretty rare in my experience.
Look & Feel team Scripting, it's mine. Common 3D trouble is confusing camera center between camera or actor. A designer may think camera center is world when it should be actor.