dideler/course-advisor

An expert system for advising Computer Science students (at Brock) which courses to enroll in.

course-advisor's Issues

GUI

Will make the expert system much more user friendly.

Possible options:

• XPCE
• PySWIP + some Python GUI (I recommend either Tkinter or PyQt)
• jpl + Java Swing

Improve dump output

The output from the dump command can get messy when the rule dumped is at least a few lines long.
Change it so it's easier to read (use more newlines probably).

Executables

Executables will be handy for people who do not have Prolog installed and do not want to install it.

See http://www.swi-prolog.org/FAQ/MakeExecutable.html

Let user know if they're supposedly ready to graduate

If there are no courses to suggest, then the user is probably ready to graduate (of course this should be taken with a grain of salt).

The proper way would be to count the number of credits they have so far, and see if it meets the number required for their program.

The very proper way would be in addition to the above, to also check that all program notes are satisfied (e.g. program note 10, which lots of students fail to satisfy until talking to Gord).

But before doing it properly, do it the quick way first, then improve upon it.

Add a course command

A command to let users query a course which supplies them with all known info about the course.

For example:

> course(cosc_1P02).

would return info such as the course name, description, prerequisites, length of weekly lectures/seminars/labs, etc.

This requires the course predicates in the KB to contain extra info than they do now.

Format text with ANSI attributes

Improve usability by enhancing some text with ANSI attributes.
For example, commands can be bolded or in a different colour, title can have a background colour, etc.

?- ansi_format([bold,fg(cyan)], 'Hello ~w', [world]).

Some commonly used attributes are:

• bold
• underline
• fg(Color), bg(Color), hfg(Color), hbg(Color)

Defined color constants are below. =default= can be used to access the default color of the terminal.

• black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white

ANSI sequences are omitted if and only if

• The =current_output= has the property tty(true) (see stream_property/2).
• The Prolog flag =color_term= is =true=.

See ansi_term.pl

Video tutorial

Show example execution and use of all commands.

Put it on YouTube and embed it on the site.

Comment the code

The shell utilities should be properly commented with inline documentation.

Explain how each predicate in our program is to be called and how it functions.

Brian Ross' suggested format is:

/* member(Item, List):

        input/output: constant Item
        input: list List

     Member is satisfied if Item is found in List.
     Member is nondeterministic -- multiple solutions can be returned. */

My suggested format is:

/**
 * Operates on a list of items and returns true if the given item is a member of the list.
 * Multiple solutions can be found.
 * @param Item The item to determine membership for. 
 * @param List The list of items to search.
 * @return Boolean whether Item is a member of List.
 */

or a very simple version:

/**
 * True if Item is a member of List.
 */

Improve Knowledge Base

A neatly structured knowledge base for the computer science calendar.

Also:

• consider making it English-like
• better predicate/rule naming