Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU!SCHMIDT From: SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Christopher Schmidt) Newsgroups: comp.sys.xerox Subject: (none) Message-ID: <12397384509.22.SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU> Date: 11 May 88 06:27:03 GMT References: <1581805@ub.cc.umich.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 31 Christopher, I would agree that there are a lot of neat ideas in the Interlisp-D environment, but I disagree that this is quality software. I seen some of the sources (older ones, I'll admit) and have to say it was some of the kludgiest stuff I've seen. I forget who made the observation first, but "the brain is a kludge." It does arithmetic slowly, has quite a high error rate, and doesn't do terribly well on any of the Gabriel benchmarks, but I wouldn't exclude it from my list of quality AI products. I hope people don't mind my "having the last word" and requesting an end to this discussion of `quality' on Info-1100. After reading dozens of pages of _Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_ devoted exclusively to explaining the writer's notion of `quality' with little or no increase in my understanding thereof, I doubt we're going to reach any conclusions in this forum. A better forum for this discussion would be AI.WORKS@OHIO-STATE.ARPA, but I doubt any minds will be changed... If you do retire your d-machines, please seek a less fortunate lab to give them to. I'm sure there's an AI lab somewhere that they can't afford to put Apollos on every desk. I for one am hoping that someone out there will donate a disk drive and a set of circuit boards for us to use as spares for our 2 dorados... Info-1100 would be a good place for you to make such an offering. ("For sale" notices, however, would constitute commercial use, and can't be permitted on the arpanet.) Best wishes, --Christopher P.S. I removed you from the list, as requested. -------