README

Project GumbyBRAIN
==================

GumbyBRAIN started as a vague experiment to test POE::Component::AI::MegaHAL and to
see if it was possible to write a self-loading POE::Component::IRC plugin.

Somewhere along the road two crazy Icelandic folks reimplemented MegaHAL as Hailo.

This is their story ....

It is dependent on the following modules:

Math::Random
POE
POE::Component::Hailo
POE::Component::IRC::State
POE::Component::IRC::Plugin::Hailo

The best way to install these is through CPAN or CPANPLUS.

There are some training files available at: 

<http://megahal.alioth.debian.org/download/old/>

This distribution includes a training file which is a collection which is an amalgamation
of various training files from the above link.

You are welcome to roll your own. Simply name it as megahal.trn, delete megahal.dic and megahal.brn
and start again.

What it does:
=============

The bot joins any number of configurable IRC networks and channels on those networks.

It takes any irc_public messages and irc_ctcp_action messages and feeds them into the megahal and
ignores the replies from megahal.

If someone 'addresses' the bot in a channel, it will send the megahal reply to the channel.
If someone performs a ctcp action on a channel that mentions the bot's nickname it will respond.

If someone sends a private message to the bot, it will respond with a NOTICE reply to the sender.

The bot will also join a private channel of it's own, "#<nickname>" where <nickname> is the bot's
nickname.

On the bot's private channel it will respond to all channel traffic with whatever the megahal replies
are. 

Installation:
=============

Install the required perl modules and edit genconfig.pl to taste.

The basic format of the hashref in genconfig.pl is:

{ 
  'irc_network' => { channels => [ qw(#chan1 #chan2 #chan3) ] },
  'settings' => { nick => 'botnickname' },
}

Each key is an irc server address. The 'settings' key MUST contain a nickname for the bot. Other option keys include 'port', 'UseSSL.'

If the irc server is a quakenet.org server, then you'll probably need to also specify 'qauth' and 'qpass'
values for authenticating with Qnet's Q bot.

perl genconfig.pl

This should create the necessary GumbyBRAIN.sto file to enable booting.

perl train.pl < megahal.trn

This will do the initial training of the bot.

perl bootstrap.pl 

This will run the bot.

The bot employs POE::Component::IRC::Plugin::Connector to stay glued to IRC networks.

Support:
=======

There is *no* support for this 'product'.