CSC151 2007S, Class 25: Project: Text Generation (Part One)

Admin:
* Reading for tomorrow: More about text generation.
* Your goal for this week: Figure out text generation and then 
  generate something interesting.
* Survey: 
  * On side 1: Your name
  * On side 2: List five most important lessons from PB&J (no looking online)
  * EC for excellent answers
* Explanation of survey
  * Sam presents on this stuff

Overview:
* The Problem.
* Strategies.
* The project: Your goal.
* Lab.

/The Problem/

* Can we make computer "simulate" human thought or activities?
* Simple domain: Writing.
  * Extended version of Madlibs.
* My goal: Give you the building blocks.
* Your goal: Write procedure that writes "interesting" texts
  * NOT Haiku
* Your secondary goal: Explain how your stuff works.
* IN TEAMS! (Selected in class on Wednesday.)

/Basic Strategies for "Random" Text Generation/

* Issue one: Generate basic parts of speech: noun, transitive verbs,
  intransitive verbs, adverbs, adjectives, exclamations, ...
  * Transitive verbs have direct objects.
  * Intransitive verbs do not have objects.
* Issue two: Generate compound parts of speech: noun-phases, clauses,
  sentences, haiku, ...

How to randomly generate basic parts of speech
* Create a file, where each line has the form
("STRING" INTEGER)
  * Sum of the integers should be 1000
("dog" 500)
("cat" 400)
("llama" 100)
* We need to randomly select from that file
(generate-part-of-speech 'part-of-speech)

How to build compound things

* Call a procedure for each part
* String-append 'em together.

LAB

/Wrapup: Your favorite generated sentences./

* A happy grade in comp sci defenestrated our smiley disco outfit.
* A corpulent banana jumped over a lazy kangaroo.