By reconstructing authentic, complex AI programs using state-of-the-art Common Lisp, the book teaches students and professionals how to build and debug robust practical programs, while demonstrating superior programming style and important AI concepts. The author strongly emphasizes the practical performance issues involved in writing real working programs of significant size. Chapters on troubleshooting and efficiency are included, along with a discussion of the fundamentals of object-oriented programming and a description of the main CLOS functions. This volume is an excellent text for a course on AI programming, a useful supplement for general AI courses and an indispensable reference for the professional programmer.

    In addition to uncovering new ways to study life as we know it, a life extends research to the larger domain of life as it could be, whatever it might be made of and wherever it might be found in the universe.This proceedings volume, based on the second artificial life workshop held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1990, reflects the evolution and horizons of this rich field of study, and builds on the proceedings of the seminal first workshop, held at Los Alamos in 1987 (also available from Addison Wesley). This compendium includes more than 30 papers spanning the spectrum of a-life research, from studies of the origin of life to models of complex systems.