infobot

infobot

   <chat> A {bot} that serves as a common database of information
   (often noteworthy {URLs}) for users on a {chat} system.
   Infobots often have a simple {chatbot interface}, responding
   to key-phrases, as well as to direct queries.

   Here, in a real conversation, the bot Purl's first response is
   triggered by the phrase "just tell me", and its second
   response is triggered by being directly asked "perlfunc?":

    <eesh> can someone tell me what: $num9 =
           substr($number,9,1); means

    <Tkil> eesh -- man perlfunc, look at "substr".

    <eesh> just tell me

    <purl> Didn't your momma ever tell you, "Go
           look it up in the dictionary"?!

    <Tkil> eesh -- no.  that's all we'll tell
           you.  read the documentation.

    <Tkil> eesh -- if you haven't man pages or
           perldoc, you can read them on the 'net.

    <Tkil> purl, perlfunc?

    <purl> well, perlfunc is Perl builtin
           functions, at man perlfunc or
           http://perl.com/CPAN-local/doc/manual/html/pod/perlfunc.html

   (http://cs.cmu.edu/~lenzo/infobot.html/).

   (1998-10-30)