Simulae3: A Testament to Socratic Design.

Socratic Method: the pedagogical technique of asking leading questions to stimulate rational thinking and illuminate ideas.

When I first started working on SimulaE (long before it was even referred to by the aforementioned name), it was a solo project.  This isn't to say that I haven't written all of the code from day one to this very moment, because I have.  I can however say that the design portion of its various incarnations wouldn't have evolved in the manner which they did were it not for the diligent use of the Socratic Method.  

My earliest versions of designing the Simulae virtual world simulation suite of libraries and what not were designed and written by me in response to the original interactive fiction/text adventure engines, then consequentially MUDs (Multi User Dungeons).   The proof of concept of building a better designed mousetrap was simple enough to bring to fruition.  This took place over years, dependent upon my free time and interest in furthering what was simply a flight of fancy for me from my programming youth and Zork playing escapades. 

What really became apparent was when I worked for another company and had the pleasure to work with a very intelligent individual by the name of Tim.  He is a systems/network administrator as well as a capable coder though the latter is not his primary goal, nor role professionally.  

Tim was interested in my Simulae project and as such I found a kindred spirit through whom I could interact by applying the aforementioned Socratic Method.  Through a constant back and forth barrage of theories and examples along with postulates about the hows and why virtual components modeled after reality need to be viewed in a certain light, we would come up with a whole new understanding about the direction of the project.  

It was during this time initially working together that the present tense English Parser component (parser.py) came to be realised and produced.  It took a total of seven point-releases to go from simple noun verb understanding to parsing complex compound sentences with a massive understanding of 45,000 adjectives, 9,500 verbs and multitudes on various parts of English speech.  This series of productive success if anything re-enforced the validity of this methodology in the realm of software design. 

It is now though, with this in mind that I have taken utilising this method to the next level and enacting it with completely uninvolved individuals (uninvolved in the sense of the projects topic and internals).  In the past several days Simulae3 has emerged from the bowels of my TextMate application.  The code is simple, shorter and far more capable than any previous incarnation and things are moving forward at a great clip.  

This brings me to the current point of interest and a call for assistance for anyone willing to get into sometimes heated dialogue about object models.  The object model system is based around the three basic SimulaeObject types.  The only piece of the puzzle still causing an issue is the matter of Portal Objects (entranceways between other container type objects.)  

For the sake of argument, just look at it this way:  A room is a container, that leads from one room to other rooms of 'greater' building enclosure.  A set of lips in a Mobile Object (hereafter MOB) (e.g. 'actor' in OO/UML terminology) is simply a Portal Object to the mouth of said MOB.  A window is simply a portal between the outside 'container' object (in this case a root SimulaeObject), and the room in which our Actor/MOB would be in (to see said POB destination from said perspective).  

I need others with whom I would be able to work out ideas so that this conundrum can be resolved and the next phase of Simulae can come about for code release and testing.  If anyone is interested, contact me at this domain via my email address: eric

I am going to finish on that note being that due to medical reasons dealing with my sciatica, I ingested a full dosage of two Vicodin tablets (as per my primary physician), and as such I'm getting ready to crash hard.   I hope to hear from some of you in the hopes of moving forward, but I'd like for Tim to give me a call in any case so that I we can bounce some ideas back and forth on these issues.

Check External Data/Configurations First.

I was recently on holiday with my family visiting other members of my family as well as friends.  It was at this time I pulled out my trusty MacBook Pro, fired up TextMate, pulled down the newest subversion repository of my simulation software 'SimulaE' and attempted to show my friend the crafty english parser component I wrote.  I showed him the test suite with all of its various scenarios and then suggested he throw an attempt at it so that he may be amazed at its crafty logic.  

He did, and it failed, and I was surprised to say the last.  So given that I was on vacation, I wasn't going to focus must time on this issue other than updating the subversion repository so that I could look into the issue at a later time.  Well, two days ago I finally did so, and found out after careful checking that one of the datafiles utilised for cross checking and sub classifications of parts of speech of english lacked the necessary word (also the culprit of the mis-parse).  After making a quick addition to the aforementioned lookup file, the test ran just fine, and passed with flying colours.  

Lesson learned (for what feels like the millionth time);  check your support configuration and/or data files, because your code isn't broken, just doing what it is supposed to, based upon the information it has available (data files) to it.

Present Tense English Parser : Part I

As part of an ongoing project during which I have been designing, building and testing in one way or another over the past decade and a half, I have arrived as the parser phase.  Well, I will correct that statement.  I have tinkered with creating parsers before, but thanks to the expressive nature of the Python language, I was finally ready to make a serious attempt at writing an English present tense command based parser.  I'm not going to make a massive post about this, though I am going to post the test results.

Note, all the tests pass.  What a passing result actually means is this; The parsers job as of version 0.5.4 is to break apart the sentence(s) properly into their components via identification of verbs, conjunctions, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, pronouns and punctuation.  

Creating Parser Instance:                                                                                  : Passed

Loading Configuration for Instance:                                                                 : Passed

Testing for version: 0.5.0 

  paint the gold bucket black                                                                             : Passed

  get the big , heavy hammer and kill Bob with it !                                           : Passed

  get hammer and squirrel from Bob and then hammer squirrel into the wall .  : Passed

  get the gold gold                                                                                             : Passed

  kill elf and get gold                                                                                         : Passed

  paint the bucket gold                                                                                       : Passed

  paint the gold bucket black !                                                                           : Passed

  get gold                                                                                                            : Passed

  kill elf , get gold                                                                                              : Passed

  get the large gold brick .                                                                                  : Passed

  paint the bucket gold .                                                                                     : Passed

  get the large , gold brick .                                                                                : Passed

Testing for version: 0.5.1 

  get rock , pliers , hammer and squirrel and hammer squirrel into the wall .     : Passed

Testing for version: 0.5.2 

  kill the trite little elf with my sword , then wipe the blood off of it !                : Passed

  destroy the cantankerous creature before you eat your dessert                        : Passed

  kill the trite little elf with my sword , then wipe the blood off of my sword !  : Passed

  kill the trite little elf with my sword .                                                               : Passed

Testing for version: 0.5.3 

  hammer the hammer into the big hammer                                                       : Passed

  hammer the hammer into the hammer                                                             : Passed

Testing for version: 0.5.4 

  kill the trite little elf with my lavacious sword , then wipe the blood off it !   : Passed

  go to the store and buy a new cellphone                                                        : Passed

  slit Fred's throat and capture the warm , red blood in a cup !                         : Passed

  play with my toys and listen to my music .                                                    : Passed

  play with my toys and listen to music .                                                          : Passed

As can be seen, the variety of possible inputs for the parser vary from simple to complex, from grammatically perfect to questionable fragments.  Being that the purpose of this parse is first and foremost for use in a command environment in which interaction is needed, thus the present tense only requirement.  This is a massive relief on the demands of the parser, but even still, it can be see from the above that the system can differentiate key words which can be used in both noun and adjective forms.  The system also handle post adjective usage.  

The system currently most notably recognises over 9,000 verbs (regular and irregular), 50 prepositions, and a whopping 46,000+ adjectives.  A call for test case phrases is hereby announced.  I am satisfied enough with the stage one parse process that I hereby am moving on to the second parse stage, that is the creation and order of individual statements (as dictated by their prepositions), in preparation for the third and final stage, in which the parser sends the results from stage two to the action engine.  Both those phases will be the subjects of new posts, accordingly.