Half Computerized Linguistics: a half Commentary

In reading through the various preprints, I was struck by the fact that many were concerned with specific computer implementations of one kind or another. Unfortunately, there seems to be little discussion of the program-ing from the programmer's viewpoint. This is under standable in a congress of computational linguistics but, I feel, somewhat regrettable. Especially nce the reports of what has already been done surely will stimulate other rticipants to use computers. I think that an informal session on programming in computational linguistics would be both interesting and valuable, allowing an exchange of ideas and experiences which would be much more difficult in the even more informal atmosphere of the dining room. In order to initiate such a session, I am enclosing the following questions, hoping that they will stimulate a certain informal correspondence before the congress begins. If enough interest is shown in this idea to warrant a session, I intend to edit the replies received (to the extent they show similarities), making summaries available to participants before the conference. In answering the questions, it is of course not necessary to confine yourself to the particular project you are discussing at the conference if another project will yield a more interesting reply. This is not, in other words, a final examination.