Artificially intelligent Ada Answer-Person

Artificially intelligent Ada Answer-Person

[rharwood]

Several recent & frequently asked questions have ready answers available in the
various free Ada information sources, questions such as (but not limited to):

     "Is there an Ada compiler for machine XYZ?"
     "Is there a way to do command line arguments that's portable?"
     "Is there a {linked list | sort | pretty printer} already written?"

Knowing, as many of us "old-timer" and frequent readerss do, that most of these
questions could be answered with some guided research, I have to ask the
following question:

     What can the Ada community do to make Ada information more READILY
     and EASILY available to the general computing public?

AdaIC, AdaNET, INFO-ADA and comp.lang.ada, the ASR, and other sources are
readily available, but it seems there is no "artificially intelligent"
answer-person service available.  I should to be able to log into a free/cheap
service and type in any variant of the three questions above and get an
IMMEDIATE answer.  Does such a beast exist?

I have two motives for asking. (1) I'm an information-hog and there are tons of
simple questions like the above I'd like to ask, and am looking for the best
source of such information without absolutely REQUIRING human intevention, and
(2) If such a service is NOT available, I'd like to consider building one.

Any comments?
Ray
-----
Ray Harwood           |Data Basix           |Associate Faculty,    
Voice: (602)721-1988  |PO Box 18324         |   Pima Community College
FAX:   (602)721-7240  |Tucson, AZ 85731     |Instructor in Ada and Pascal
CompuServe: 76645,1370|AppleLink: DATA.BASIX|Internet: rharwood@east.pima.edu

Re: Artificially intelligent Ada Answer-Person

[Karl A. Nyberg]

In article <1991May28.214107.1@east.pima.edu> you write:
>Several recent & frequently asked questions have ready answers available in the
>various free Ada information sources, questions such as (but not limited to):

>Knowing, as many of us "old-timer" and frequent readerss do, that most of these
>questions could be answered with some guided research, I have to ask the
>following question:
>
>     What can the Ada community do to make Ada information more READILY
>     and EASILY available to the general computing public?
>
>AdaIC, AdaNET, INFO-ADA and comp.lang.ada, the ASR, and other sources are
>readily available, but it seems there is no "artificially intelligent"
>answer-person service available.  I should to be able to log into a free/cheap
>service and type in any variant of the three questions above and get an
>IMMEDIATE answer.  Does such a beast exist?
>
>I have two motives for asking. (1) I'm an information-hog and there are tons of
>simple questions like the above I'd like to ask, and am looking for the best
>source of such information without absolutely REQUIRING human intevention, and
>(2) If such a service is NOT available, I'd like to consider building one.

I would be glad to work on a regularly distributed Frequently Asked
Questions posting for comp.lang.ada if you/anybody else would like to join.
Of course, I am not about to put everything that I have in the Ada : Sources
& Resources publication into the FAQ.

-- Karl --
-- 
Karl A. Nyberg				karl@grebyn.com
Post Office Box 497			Grebyn Corporation
Vienna, VA 22183-0497 USA		+1-703-281-2194