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Ask HN: Building a simple conversational UI – what libraries should I look at?
I'm looking to build a simple conversational/text UI for an existing application.
Need to support about 20 "commands" (ex: How many visitors did I get last week?).
Considered just creating a Domain Specific Language (many libraries for that), but want to support something closer to natural language.
What libraries should I look at? I'm primarily a Python guy, but am open to other languages.
- petercooper 11y agoBeing on Python, you have the great advantage of having access to NLTK :-) http://www.nltk.org/ http://www.nltk.org/ - it's pretty intense and offers a lot, but also includes some example bots: http://www.nltk.org/api/nltk.chat.html http://www.nltk.org/api/nltk.chat.html My personal advice, though, is while you can definitely try to support a more 'natural' type of language, you do want to define fixed formats for commands in your documentation/help so as not to confuse users or encourage them to keep trying all sorts of variations to figure out what magic combo makes your bot work.
- sharpshoot 11y agowww.converse.ai has an API you can use. Works cross platform - gives you Slack, SMS, chat etc out the box.
- mindcrime 11y agoYou might find AIML useful. I don't know much about the state of AIML interpreters in Python, but I'm guessing there is at least one good one.