AI Programming at the Kossiakoff Center

605.724 is offered during the Spring semesters at the Kossiakoff center, and is taught by Marty Hall (hall@apl.jhu.edu).

The course looks at AI programming in Common Lisp. As such, time is split between advanced Common Lisp topics and more theoretical discussions of implementation strategies for AI algorithms. 605.723, the introductory Artificial Intelligence course is a prerequisite. If you have not had the formal prerequisite but feel that you are qualified due to coursework at another institution or due to work experience, please contact me.

As with all of the courses I teach, there will be no exams, and grades will be based on regularly-assigned programming projects and homeworks. The grading policy, syllabus, many of the class handouts, information on several of the programming projects, and other information is available below.

Background Information

Syllabus. Viewing this requires a WWW browser that supports tables.
Grading and Homework Policies
Hardcopy References (Books and Journals) on Common Lisp. Any of these references are available for short-term loan to students if they are not available in the library. Please contact me. Also, see my Lisp-hints page for online resources.

Lecture Notes

Introduction, Course Structure and Common Lisp Review.
More on Common Lisp, especially first-class functions
Heuristic Search, especially A*
Heuristic Search, especially IDA*
Macros (forms that generate Lisp code)
CLOS -- The Common Lisp Object System. See the CLOS-related handouts below for syntax details and examples.

Lisp-Related Handouts

Reminder: more information is available at my Lisp-hints page.

A Quick Review of what I expect you to already be familiar with before starting 605.724.
cond, let, and let*.
A thumbnail overview of loop syntax.
format, Lisp's answer to C's fprintf.
A quick summary of some "higher order" functions in Lisp. Ie functions that use functions as arguments.
Structures in Lisp. For complex cases, use CLOS instead (see below).
A thumbnail overview of CLOS syntax.
Some details on defclass, the class-defining macro in Lisp.
defgeneric, a form that is sometimes used in addition to defmethod for defining generic functions.
A quick look at destructive operations and their impact on list-processing efficiency.

Homework Assignments

Aside from these three, I will not be posting HW assignments in advance. This is partly because I may not have them developed yet, and partly because I don't want to overly bias what students pay attention to in class by what they know (or think) will be required for the assignments.

A quick and easy Lisp warmup to review rusty skills.
Using/writing higher-order functions in Lisp.
Final projects. This is subject to change.