Which language should I use? [closed]

Answer 1

Try Python using Mod_Python. As a language, it's got a lot of great machine learning and natural language processing modules, and it's really easy to read, learn, and use.

Answer 2

AI? Definitely LISP

Answer 3

If you're used to the unix stack/environment, I would go for Python - nice and easy.

EDIT: You can implement the number-crunching part in C or C++ and make it a module to use in your python code. This way, you get fast number-crunching code, and easy-to-program glue.

Answer 4

Regarding Python:

If you need performance for compute-intensive stuff, look at Numeric Python http://numpy.scipy.org/ and Pyrex http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/ . Numeric Python is a Python extension that provides a lot of old-school numeric facilities as fast C code -- vector math (an essential tool for ANN work), etc. Pyrex is a tool that essentially allows you to compile Python code down to a native executable.

With Pyrex you need to be careful about using reflection, because it can't fully compile code that uses certain reflective constructs (notably locals() and globals()). I mention this restriction only because both AI and exploratory coding (implied by your "prototype" remark) often take advantage of reflection more than other kinds of application areas do.

Answer 5

Something that manages memory for you. They claim it is the technology change that gives the biggest boost in productivity. I think pound-for-pound c# is incredibly hard to beat.

Answer 6

If it were me, I would write the whole thing in python, then profile it and write the bottlenecks in pyrex. When you're developing complex AI-type algoritms, it's (1) useful to develop in a high-level language so you can quickly try lots of different approaches and (2) useful to have a reference implementation in a high-level language to test the C/C++ implementation against. I use python/pyrex in this way all the time and it works well for me.