Ubercode

Ubercode news blog (most recent at top)

I submitted Uberbot to the 2013 Loebner Prize. Unfortunately I came 5th so that means Uberbot is not invited to the finals in London Derry. It's annoying to miss out by one place but this was the first year I entered the Loebner Prize. I have a lot of work to do!

Instead of getting on with the Ubercode Connector Classes I have managed to distract myself with two other tasks - one of these is related to my day job at the RBS Group, and the other relates to the exciting field of AI (artificial intelligence).
First I successfully passed the Microsoft MCITP (Database Developer) certification for SQL Server 2008. This involves passing two exams, 70-433 and 70-451 which ask a wide range of questions about SQL. My work kindly helped with the training for this certification. However as SQL Server 2012 has been released, there is a new set of exams to pass to get up to speed with the new features, so I will be studying for some time to come!
The second distraction was to create the Uberbot. This is an AI program and you can ask it simple questions and it (sometimes) gives a sensible answer. This is my entry to the 2013 Loebner prize and it uses a mixture of SQL Server, AI files using XML, and a client application written using Ubercode.
Other news: there is a new Trial Pack download which includes the Uberbot as a sample program (although without the AI files). This is available for experiment if anyone wants.

I am still working on the Data Connector Classes, and I plan these to be included in the next release of Ubercode. The key part of the work is a new wizard Program - Add Data Source which browses for a data source, prompts you for the columns to include, and generates a class that connects to the data source. The new class includes data viewers, table viewers, record viewers, and other tools for working with the data source. Basically a data source class provides dialogs and commands for editing and displaying the data.
The data sources will include CSV (comma separated value) files, XML files, Dbase files and text files with other separators such as tabs or semi-colons. The code for these file-based data sources is working, although I am running some final testing for Dbase files.
Still to come are the data sources that connect to databases. The SQL connection code is already working (in class sqlutil) but I have to finish the part of the wizard that automatically creates the connector class for SQL. This is the last major hurdle prior to releasing Ubercode v1.3.
In the meantime there is a new Trial Pack download which includes the wizard for the file-based data sources. So if you want to quickly create a program that works with CSV files, XML files or Dbase files then download the new Trial Pack now and get started!