Open Content Free Web Books

Do you want to use Latex to write technical papers and books with program listings and program output?

I have set up a package with my Latex setup here as a ZIP file that contains the very beginning of one of my writing projects - after I set up the environment but before much text or example programs were added. The README.txt file contains some notes and other cool things to try with Latex.

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Loving Lisp, or the Savvy Programmer's Secret Weapon

To download the newest version (September 18, 2002) please click here to download.

I was motivated to write this book because I have been an enthusiastic Lisp programmer since the 1970s and I would like to motivate more programmers to learn ANSI Common Lisp.

While I consider Java to be twice as "programmer efficient" as C++, I consider Common Lisp to be twice as good as Java for some applications. Common Lisp compilers are freely available, stable, and compiled Common Lisp code is very fast.

Not yet programming in Lisp? Spend a few evenings with this free web book and experience what many computer scientists consider the best all-around programming language.

The language Scheme is also a dialect of Lisp and is frequently used in programming classes. My free web book only covers Common Lisp, not Scheme.

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Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming in Java

New version 2007: work in progress.
Incomplete re-write - posted for technical feedback and not for general readers.
You probably want (for now) the older version:

Old version November 18, 2005.  This book is approximately 130 pages in length. The latest version has a completed new chapter on statistical natural language processing and a new section on embedded expert systems, and a new chapter on spam detection (uses Paul Graham's 'Plan for SPAM' ideas, with his permission).

My latest Open Content book covers AI programming techniques using Java. Please note that this is not the original book that I wrote for Morgan Kaufman Publishers (see my book page); it is all new material, including:

1. Search - graph search, and alpha-beta search in tic-tac-toe and chess
2. Natural Language Processing - a simple ATN parser that uses a huge lexicon derived from Wordnet data, material on my NLBean project (see my Open Source page on my web site), and an embedded Prolog parser (includes Sieuwert van Otterloo's fine Prolog implementation in Java).
3. Expert systems - two simple examples using the Jess system
4. Genetic algorithms - Java utility classes and two examples
5. Neural Networks - utility classes for Hopfield and back propagation. Only includes simple examples to show how to use the utility classes.
6. Statistical Natural Language Processing (Markov Models)
7. SPAM Email detection

Click here to download

(a 1.7 megabyte download, including Portrait format PDF and example code)

Click here to download just the PDF file in Landscape mode for easier viewing on a computer screen

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Fiction

Brady's Very Hungry Day

My wife Carol wrote this picture story for our young grandchildren: Brady's Hungry Day. Read this picture story to your young children - they will like it!

Fish Pond

Download this this very short story if you want to experience my strange sense of humor :-)