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C00002 00002		This had been RLL.DIS[RDG,DBL]
C00003 00003	∂20-Oct-80  1258	RDG  	RLL Bulletin Board 
C00007 00004	∂03-Nov-80  1518	RDG  	RLL BB, Message#2  
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	This had been RLL.DIS[RDG,DBL]
RDG@SAIL, CSD.LENAT@SCORE, CSD.SMITH@SCORE, CSD.GENESERETH@SCORE,
CSD.MOSTOW@SCORE, CSD.NOVAK@SCORE, ATP.HINES@UTEXAS-20,
PRESSBURGER@SCI, SUE@SCI, SKLEIN@USC-ISIB, QUAYLE@SUMEX,
KEIRSEY@USC-ECL, BSMITH@BBNG,
CSD.GARDNER@SCORE, STAN@SRI-KL, SASTRY@ISIF, KANDT@USC-ECL, RBECHTAL@BBNA,
ATP.HINES@UTEXAS-20,
RICK@RAND-AI, HENRY@RAND-AI, GORLIN@RAND-AI, KLAHR@RAND-AI, WESCOURT@RAND-AI,
CJOHNSON@SUMEX, RBRACHMAN@BBND,
BALZER@ISIB, ALAN@ISIB, PLONDON@ISIB, ERMAN@ISIB,
STT@SAIL,
STUDENT1@SUMEX, TKEHLER@BBNA,
CSD.PURDY@SCORE, DAVE@RAND-AI
∂20-Oct-80  1258	RDG  	RLL Bulletin Board 
To:   "@RLL.DIS[RDG,DBL]" at SU-AI    
This message,  addressed  to people  who  have expressed  an  interest  in
Representation Language Languages, marks the beginning of the RLL Bulletin
Board.  Its  purpose  is  to  relay  relevant  ideas  to  people  who  are
interested in the concept of rlls, and their implementation.

My views are expressed in the "RLL-1: A Representation Language  Language"
(HPP-80-9).  This verbosely expands the article (of almost the same title)
which appears in the proceeding of the recent AAAI.  By now you all should
have received a copy of this memo.  Comments on both its content and  form
will be greatly appreciated.

A companion  memo,  "The  Details  of  RLL-1"  (HPP-80-23),  contains  the
implementation-level facts necessary for people  who actually want to  use
our current implementation.  This paper is now available -- please send me
a message if you would like a copy.

The first bona fide  rll, MRS, (for  Modifiable Representation System)  is
almost totally designed.   This system  does many  of the  things I  wantd
RLL-1 to do, correctly. Reqests for both documentation, and for access  to
this program, should be addressed to its builders, Prof Micheal Genesereth
(CSD.GENESERETH@SCORE) or Dave Smith (CSD.SMITH@SCORE).

The RLL bulletin distribution list currently consists of

RDG@SAIL,    CSD.LENAT@SCORE,    CSD.SMITH@SCORE,    CSD.GENESERETH@SCORE,
CSD.MOSTOW@SCORE,   CSD.HINES@SCORE,   CSD.NOVAK@SCORE,   KEIRSEY@USC-ECL,
PRESSBURGER@SCI,       SUE@SCI,       SKLEIN@USC-ISIB,       QUAYLE@SUMEX,
CSD.GARDNER@SCORE, BSMITH@BBNG,  STAN@SRI-KL, SASTRY@ISIF,  KANDT@USC-ECL,
RBECHTAL@BBNA,    ATP.HINES@UTEXAS-20,    RICK@RAND-AI,     HENRY@RAND-AI,
GORLIN@RAND-AI, KLAHR@RAND-AI, WESCOURT@RAND-AI

Anyone else wishing to be on this mailing list need only send me a message
to be included.

Russell Greiner (RDG@SAIL, CSD.GREINER@SCORE)

∂03-Nov-80  1518	RDG  	RLL BB, Message#2  
To:   "@RLL.DIS[RDG,DBL]" at SU-AI    
This message has several purposes:

1) The RLL Bulletin Board distribution list has been updated. It should be

RDG@SAIL,    CSD.LENAT@SCORE,    CSD.SMITH@SCORE,    CSD.GENESERETH@SCORE,
CSD.MOSTOW@SCORE,   CSD.HINES@SCORE,   CSD.NOVAK@SCORE,   KEIRSEY@USC-ECL,
PRESSBURGER@SCI,       SUE@SCI,       SKLEIN@USC-ISIB,       QUAYLE@SUMEX,
CSD.GARDNER@SCORE, BSMITH@BBNG,  STAN@SRI-KL, SASTRY@ISIF,  KANDT@USC-ECL,
RBECHTAL@BBNA,    ATP.HINES@UTEXAS-20,    RICK@RAND-AI,     HENRY@RAND-AI,
GORLIN@RAND-AI, KLAHR@RAND-AI, WESCOURT@RAND-AI

(The changes:
 add on	CSD.GARDNER@SCORE, STAN@SRI-KL, SASTRY@ISIF, KANDT@USC-ECL,
	RBECHTAL@BBNA, ATP.HINES@UTEXAS-20, RICK@RAND-AI, HENRY@RAND-AI, 
	GORLIN@RAND-AI, KLAHR@RAND-AI, WESCOURT@RAND-AI
 and change
	BSMITH@PARC => BSMITH@BBNG
	KEIRSAY@USC-ECL => KEIRSEY@USC-ECL)

The files RLL.DIS[rdg,dbl] and RLL.BBD[rdg,dbl] (both at SU-AI) will house
the distribution list and list of announcements made, respectively.

2) There  was some  confusion about  the purpose  and definition  of  this
Bulletin Board.   It  should be  used  for comments  about  representation
language languages in general; and NOT to discuss the details of  specific
implementations, such as RLL-1  or MRS (except  where that description  is
relevant to  elucidate  some  general  idea).   [Once  these  systems  are
distributed (see  (3)  below), each  will  have a  seperate  board,  which
describe bugs, fixes and updates to these respective systems.]

In terms of policy: we strongly  encourage everyone to participate in  the
dialogues --  please  feel  free  to  submit  your  ideas,  and  to  voice
objections/comments/apprehensions  in  response  to  statements  made   by
others.  The procedure will be to mail out your message to all members  on
the list given above. I  will see that all new  members receive a copy  as
well.  If,  later on,  the  list includes  people  not on  the  electronic
network,  I  will  (at   least  at  first)   periodically  mail  out   the
contributions, unaltered.

3) As several people have make  inquiries about the status of RLL-1,  I'll
now  override  statement  (2)  above  to  talk  about  this  system,   and
particularly the nature of our objectives.

While we  do plan  to  release RLL-1  eventually,  we are  cautious  about
releasing it too  soon.  Our reasons  stem from various  causes:  

(i) The particulars of the starting RLL-1 system (i.e the "bootstrap") are
still being hammered  out.  The  difficulties of  this design  are in  two
camps:  First we  want the system  to be as  unbiased as possible.   Given
that this starting system will necesarily employ some conventions we  want
to insure each such convention is "minimal" and necessary -- that is, they
should not  force you,  the  user, into  difficult situations  or  awkward
coding.  The neo-natal  MRS is  much closer  to realizing  this goal  that
RLL-1 will ever be.

Secondly, RLL-1  should  come  equipped  with  enough  powerful,   general
constructs that the user can readily do a great many useful things, over a
wide range of tasks. Bifurcating  again, many of RLL-1 current  components
have not yet reached  the generality we  think possible, and  furthermore,
there are  many areas  which have  not even  been considered,  and so  the
modules capable of performing this type of task have not yet been built.

This is not surprising:   By design, RLL-1 is  a continuously growing  and
evolving system --  one capable of  adding on new  components as the  need
arises.  The concern here is the large number of known ommissions.

(ii) Another major  problem is the  bugs which are  present in the current
RLL-1 system.  We feel it will take  about a month to correct the ones  we
now know about.

(iii) The other major issue stems from research directions. Prof Lenat and
I developed RLL-1 as a tool, to be used to build the EURISKO system.  [See
Appendix B.2  for an  overview  of RLL-1's  role  as foundation  for  this
system.]  There were  two major reasons  why we encouraged  others to  use
RLL-1:  First, these other applications will  push on the set of  features
RLL-1 will have to  provide; the modules built  to handle such  situations
will expand RLL-1's  capabilites, making it  a more general  tool for  our
uses  as  well.   Second,   RLL-1  will  provide   a  Lingua  Franca   for
EURISKO-related knowledge  bases.  To  function, the  EURISKO system  must
first include a large collection of diverse knowledge bases.  Rather  than
inputing these ourselves,  we would rather  develope a symbiotic  relation
with other  researchers  -- they  will  be given  the  underlying  EURISKO
system, as a  particular representational/control scheme  for their  data,
and in exchange, we  get to peek over  their shoulders, and collect  their
set of heuristics.  As  such, it is strongly  in our interest to  continue
supporting EURISKO.  We have further decided to support/improve RLL-1 only
where such modifications are  crucial to its  application to this  primary
line of research  -- which  is concerned  more with  heuristics than  with
representations, per se.

As the  first  message  noted,  the research  ideas  of  a  representation
language language are still being  pursued here at Stanford, by  Professor
Micheal  Genesereth  and  David   Smith,  in  developing  the   Modifiable
Representation  System  (MRS)  mentioned  above.   They  have   guaranteed
continued support of its  kernel, and intend to  soon develop a full  user
community, in which  implementations of  diverse representational  systems
can be coopertively constructed, collected and dispersed.  After the (both
conceptual and  implementation) bugs  have been  purged from  both of  our
respective systems, RLL-1 will actually be encoded in MRS.  At this  point
RLL-1  will  be  (viewable  as)  one  of  many  "plug-in"  modules,  which
"twiddles" that copy of MRS into  a system which follows a particular  set
of conventions.

I hope this  message clarifies some  of the questions  you have had  about
RLL-1.  Please let me know if there are others.

Russ Greiner  (RDG@SAIL)