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@joe.edwards@imaginuity.com said:@newfweiler said:Way back in the 1980's a friend of mine saw a demonstration at a trade show of a revolutionary new database system. All you had to do was ask questions in normal English sentences. You didn't have to know anything about programming. Anyone could use this system.
The demo was loaded with geographical information such as the heights of all the mountains in the world.
My friend typed:
What are the five highest mountains in Europe and Africa?
The computer responded:
There are no mountains in Europe and Africa.
Clearly your friend should have used "or" instead of "and." This story sounds familiar... Have you posted it before?
I probably did, somewhere or another. It's relevant here too. I suppose I need to explain it, though, because apparently the point is easily missed.
My friend was a programmer and fully understood the difference between "or" and "and". However, the product's marketers did not understand the difference between formal logic (as used by programmers, supposedly NOT the target market) and informal English (as used by non-technical people, supposedly the target market).
"What are the five highest mountains in Europe and Africa?" is a perfectly reasonable, intelligible English question. It is ambiguous, but when you hear it you automatically reject the parsings that seem to ask for absurd or noninformative results (e.g., "What are the five highest mountains, each of which is located both in Africa and in Europe," or "What are (Africa) and (the five highest mountains in Europe)?"
My friend demonstrated that the claims made by the manufacturer for the product were not valid (specifically, that it would correctly answer simple English questions). That's all.
Or does the story sound familiar because you are the friend in question, whom I haven't seen in twenty years? In which case: Hello! Did you ever escape from that sweatshop?