I was leafing through Lincoln Stein's "Network Programming with Perl" (2001 edition), and found something not mentioned in the Wikipedia article about ELIZA.

There is a Perl clone: https://metacpan.org/pod/Chatbot::Eliza Yay! Something new to play with!

Tom

PS: (command line - wondering if anyone has created a web interface already. Probably. If not, anyone care to take a stab at it?)

"If not, anyone care to take a stab at it?"

Sounds like your are volunteering to fulfill your own request of a web interface for this piece of computer history ;)

I might, but no sense reinventing the wheel.

The author, John Nolan, has already provided a web interface with the download from metacpan.org:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# This simple script implements a Chatbot::Eliza
# object in a cgi program.  It uses the CGI.pm module 
# written by Lincoln Stein.
#
# Needless to say, you must have the CGI.pm module
# installed and working properly with CGI scripts on
# your Web server before you can try to run this script.  
# CGI.pm is not included with Eliza.pm.  
# 
# Information about CGI.pm is here:  
# http://www.genome.wi.mit.edu/ftp/pub/software/WWW/cgi_docs.html

use CGI;
use Chatbot::Eliza;

my $cgi     = new CGI;
my $chatbot     = new Chatbot::Eliza;

srand( time ^ ($$ + ($$ << 15)) ); # seed the random number generator

print $cgi->header;
print $cgi->start_html;
print $cgi->start_multipart_form;
print $cgi->h2('Eliza session');

# These lines contain the "Eliza" functionality.
# User comments are passed through the module's transform
# method, and the output is used to prompt the user 
# for futher input. 
#
if ( $cgi->param() ) {
    $prompt = $chatbot->transform( $cgi->param('Comment') );
} else {
    $prompt = $chatbot->transform('Hello');
}

$cgi->param('Comment','');

print     $cgi->h3($prompt),
    $cgi->br,
    $cgi->textarea(    -name => 'Comment',
            -wrap => 'yes',
            -rows => 3,
            -columns => 70 );

print     $cgi->p,
    $cgi->submit('Action','Send to Eliza'),
    $cgi->reset('Reset');

print $cgi->endform;
print $cgi->end_html;
[download]

I could just put it up on the web as-is, but I very much doubt the Eliza module is installed on my bargain basement hosting service, or that they would be willing to install it for me.

It might be fun to write a web version that doesn't depend on CGI.pm. (or Chatbot::Eliza for that matter) Probably quite doable. The code is well documented and doesn't appear to be too complicated.

I'd probably take a different approach to the whole thing though, like drop the "therapy" angle and have it just be more conversational. Code-wise, I'd also drop the object-orientedness.

Tom

I did originally write: "PS: (command line - wondering if anyone has created a web interface already. Probably. If not, I might take a stab at it?)

But then I didn't want anyone to feel left out. So changed "I" to "Anyone".

I mostly write programs (or try anyway) for one of two reasons. Either because it seems like fun or it is something required to save humanity from self destruction

In the late 80's and early 90's I was involved in the development of the World Wide Web because I believed it would reduce paper consumption and, in time, slow, or even reverse the rapid destruction of old growth forests being clear-cut all over the world, at the time, largely, just to supply Newsprint.

Any programs I've ever written have been General Public License, which is also why I write programs in Perl.

In this case I don't think an AI Bot is going to save the world, so this would be just for fun.

Tom