ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] IBM Watson & source code

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "doug foxvog" <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:58:11 -0500 (EST)
Message-id: <52971.71.192.24.175.1297771091.squirrel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Mon, February 14, 2011 17:47, Pavithra said:
> David Eddy,
>
> I think you have an excellant Idea..  Just imagine feeding a COBOL program
> and asking Watson to convert that to  Java and open source or
> whatever...      (01)

Watson does not "understand" its input text.  It probabilistically finds
its answer, often getting it right.  Who would want a 100,000 line program
to be converted with an 80% probability that each line was converted
correctly?    (02)

> --- On Mon, 2/14/11, David Eddy <deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> For certain Watson handles the sort of textual documents that humans 
> tend to deal with.  There is another type of textual document that 
> very few humans can cope with... source code.
>
> Any speculation what would happen if Watson were fed a diet of 
> computer programs?  Stuff like COBOL, Fortran, JCL, CICS, APL, HTML, 
> PHP, Python, Java, JavaScript & the hundreds of languages in active 
> use in enterprises.
>
> Could Watson answer questions like:  "I need to change XYZ... what 
> else do I need to pay attention to?"    (03)

This is a very different question.  A system that uses Watson and knows
what the reserved words are could provide what non-reserved words most
frequently appear along with the specified word.  However, an algorithmic
program could easily list every other non-reserved word that is used
in conjunction with the specified one, sorting them by type of term:
subroutine, method, variable of different type, etc.  I don't see that
Watson would be useful for this.    (04)

-- doug foxvog    (05)

> ___________________
> David Eddy
> deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> 781-455-0949
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/ 
> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/ 
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>
>
> 
>____________________________________________________________________________________
> It's here! Your new message!
> Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar.
> http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>    (06)


=============================================================
doug foxvog    doug@xxxxxxxxxx   http://ProgressiveAustin.org    (07)

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
    - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
=============================================================    (08)


_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (09)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>