Hi Everybody!

Found myself reading email yesterday AM after work, well past my bedtime,

when I saw this evocative post: "Holiday Gift from Paul McNett and Ed

Leafe". I was thinking I have to break off and get some sleep to be at

least *awake* for my afternoon appointment, but, oh, I have to read this

one . . .

It was a URL. It loaded like the wind - no graphics, all text. It was a web

app called "The Thing". A little text description was to the effect that

Paul and Ed hoped we would like this holiday gift to the community - an

online application checker/translator, along with the holiday wish that

this would help people get work done, understand all the stuff we have to

understand and maybe even make money. All thought of sleep suddenly vanished.

There was an "input box" labeled "paste your code or text here", a dropdown

"identify the best description of your input" the choices were FoxPro code,

.net code, Python code, pseudocode, other code, text, [OT] and Sheep.

Then there was an "output" dropdown labeled "select your desired output"

and those choices were correct FoxPro code, correct .net code, correct

Python code, correct other code, good text, logical, intelligent [OT] and

Sheep. Then there was an "output display window".

Finally there were a series of controls, test, create .exe, create Windows

setup file, create Linux package, create web application. I thought, I have

to *try* this right now.

So I did! First I plunked in my eight year's work of failed FoxPro code,

chose correct Python code and out it came, in seconds! I pressed the test

control and the program sprang upon the screen, just as I had always

dreamed that it someday would. I played with it for a few minutes and found

to my delight that it was just what I had always wanted, everything worked

and worked ever so well.

Then, I popped in one of the most overbearing ad-hominem [OT] posts I could

find on my hard drive, chose logical, intelligent [OT] and out came a most

reasoned, objective version. Remarkable considering that Paul avoids [OT]

and Ed has a point of view that is usually to the D side, but there it was.

Then I popped in the Gettysburg address, and it came back unchanged. I got

to thinking, this is not just software, this is *artificial intelligence*

and they are just giving it to the world for a holiday present!

Well, before I did anything else I created a directory to receive my

completed project, courtesy of Paul and Ed. Just as I was about to press

"create web application" the power to the house went out long enough to

crash the old clunker. I don't use my home computer very often and I

haven't bothered with a UPS, bad me. When I rebooted and got back to

Eudora, the post, the URL, all of it was gone, checked the archives - no

sign. I started to post a message about "what was that URL . . . " Then I

woke up in bed, I'd dreamed the whole thing.

Regards,

Pete