Re: Natural Language Query tools

 Jennifer R. Amon writes:

> Hi,
>
> Anybody out there using INTELLECT for ad hoc query of an Oracle
> Database?
>
> I am. Oracle v6.0.36.1 (going to Oracle7 asap) on a VAX/VMS machine.
> I'd love to compare notes.
>
> If not INTELLECT, what about other Natural Language (English) query
> tools?

We us 'Natural Language' by Natural Language, Inc. (Berkley, CA). NL is a VERY sophisticated product which runs on a wide variety of platforms (UNIX, VMS, even Windows on the PC!). It runs in both an X-windows environment and character environment though the real power of the tool is in X because NL integrates graphics with the package. Ala, 'Show me sales by division.' and then 'Make a pie chart' to get a pie chart of sales by division.

Currently in release 5 something, NL is quite a mature product. The real power in it is that it uses 'AI' like technology to perform its English recognition. This is not just a keyword or utterance matching type system. NL comes with a pretty sophisticated knowledge of English, you 'just' tell it about the data in the database and how people talk about the data. I say 'just' because implementing an NL application is not all that easy. Some of the concepts are pretty heady and there are seemingly thousands of tools to use to make the product understand YOUR application and YOUR ORGANIZATION's version of the language.

The development environment is an X based tool which is also very spohisticated and provides for interactive debugging. I could go on and on but I think NL is the 'cream de la cream' of products in its category.

If you want more info, I'd be more than happy to provide it or you can call Natural Language direct. My contact is:

Barclay Rockwood
Natural Language, Inc.
1030 Mass. Ave
Cambridge, Mass 02138
(617) 547-4900

Hope this helps.

David Tondreau | (703) 761-6740
Vice President | ars_mgr_at_nhqvax.hq.nasa.gov
LCT, Inc.      | 

If a job's worth doing, its worth doing right. Received on Fri Oct 30 1992 - 12:42:25 CET