ABSTRACT
Natural language processing technology represents an enormous advance in the user-friendliness of computer systems. This chapter presents a brief history of the development of user-friendly systems in order to put this new technology in perspective. The earliest computer database query systems required queries written in machine or assembler language. Query languages enable users without programming skills to access databases. Menu systems are much easier to learn than either programming languages or query systems. Menu systems present the user with a sequence of fixed choices and the user need only learn how to move through the options. As a result of technology developed in the field of artificial intelligence, natural language query systems have emerged as the logical successor to query languages. The goal of the EXPLORER project was to produce a non-fragile language analyzer suitable for industrial and business applications that require database access.
