Information Management System: The natural dialogue system

Abstract

The natural dialogue system (NDS) is a software system designed to permit the easy implementation of time-shared computer programs which employ sophisticated forms of man-machine dialogue to converse with members of a nonprogrammer user audience. The heart of the system is a syntax-directed translator which recognizes user input messages and translates them into an internal text of integers for use by the program. NDS allows the language designer to specify the syntax of the statements in his language, the form of their translations, methods for diagnosing errors in user's input, diagnostic messages to be generated, and the style of dialogue which will exist between the programs and their users. This is accomplished through a dialogue description and a language description consisting of syntactic specification elements with semantic procedures embedded within them. Use of NDS allows the language designer to produce an interactive language which is tailor-made for both his users and his programs. NDS relieves the language designer of the necessity of writing a complex message analyzer, thereby substantially reducing the effort required to produce systems that offer these forms of man-machine dialogue. Furthermore, use of NDS allows such systems to be implemented by less sophisticated programming talent than would otherwise be necessary.