Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines, and Wired Markets

7.9. Composing Syntactically Bulletproof Programs

Artificial intelligence systems can be difficult to program. One popular AI software tool was known within the company that sold it as "syntax relief for LISP."

Many AI programming concepts are totally alien to normal business users. Simplification of the language and provision of automated assistance in developing programs are needed to make AI tools useful commercially. An excellent example is found in the Gensym Corporation's G2 process control systems, which combine graphic layout, tight real-world integration, and "intelligent" grammatical support to facilitate the development of useful programs for process control. Gensym programs now run power, water, and chemical plants around the world, and the subways of Paris.^[]

There are no natural graphic standards for describing trading strategies, so MarketMind's assistance for program developers consists of a text-based grammar-driven real-time parser/editor, called the "Composer." Sophisticated real-time parsing based on the Earley parsing algorithm is used to present all grammatically valid alternatives as the program is written, and all valid alternatives when a program is being edited. This is illustrated in Figure 7.6. Syntax errors cannot be made using this approach. It provides a rich extensible language that can express a wide range of trading/investment ideas in a natural way.

The icon buttons, arranged in a bar called the Conductor (seen at the top of the screen), control ...