Duckling is a very interesting project that I think exemplifies many great design principles. It's a parser written in Clojure that can turn natural language sentences into structured computer readable data. Clojure, if you haven't heard, is a Lisp that runs on Java's virtual machine. Now's a good a time as any to check it out!

Here are some things Duckling can understand:

• "from 9:30 - 11:00 on Thursday
• "the day before labor day 2020"
• "thirty two Celsius"
• "seventh"

Some of the design decisions that really set Duckling apart:

• Extensibility: Easily write your own set of rules to make it work for your own purposes.
• Probabilistic: Duckling doesn't always know what's right, but it'll take its best guess and tell you how sure it is.
• Data Agnostic: Duckling doesn't make assumptions about what you need, it can be trained to do whatever you like.

Go ahead and check out the docs and give building your own parser a try: Duckling.

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