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% TODO
% This file is from Chemlogic, a logic programming computer chemistry system
% http://icebergsystems.ca/chemlogic
% (C) Copyright 2012-2015 Nicholas Paun

Contents

  1. Chemistry concepts
  2. Database
  3. Program features
  4. Organization and Structure
  5. Bugs

2. Chemistry features

  • Support for structural formulas:

    • The covalent parser will have to be extended very much, to handle structures of the compounds it supports
    • The formula parser will need to have some sort of input and output representation for structural formulas
    • Each output format will have its own ways of rendering structural formulas. This will have to be extended.
    • A module will be needed to convert structural formulas to molecular formulas for balancing and other processes.

  • More organic naming:

    • It will be useful to implement organic compound naming at least for Chemistry 11 to 12.

  • Complex Redox reactions:

    • Sometimes, for a few very complex redox reactions, Chemlogic gives an answer that satisfies the system of linear equations (i.e. is balanced) but will not actually occur in real life.
    • A new balancing process, with a separate module should be implemented. Perhaps based on oxidation numbers or half-reactions

  • Diagramming:

    • Show structural formulas of compounds
    • Bohr models, Lewis diagrams
    • Periodic tables?

3. Database

  • Add many, many more elements.
  • More polyatomic groups
  • Write-up a large batch of common names

4. Program features

  • Extend the chemcli DSL to make it more useful.

    • Offer a way to query the chemical information database.
    • More constructs/operators.
    • A standard library?
    • This will all depend on the sorts of programs that someone will actually want to write

  • Quiz program

    • Allow for questions to be generated with selectable options (the parser and perhaps major subparts)
    • Interactive and non-interactive usage depending on output format
    • Configurable marking (allow retry, show correct answer at end, etc.)
    • Possible to produce the same questions if passed the same seed.
    • Some sort of intelligence, focusing on problem areas when giving questions.

  • Expose the chemical information database.

  • Better error messages for equation balancing errors

    • Perhaps explain why some charge shifts are unsatisfiable
    • Explain which element makes the system unbalancable, if possible.

5. Organization and Structure

  • Take advantage of SWI-Prolog's new string type. This makes tokenization, concatenation and many other things more efficient.

  • Chemlogic needs a simple tokenizer to break up chemical names and equations (especiallly)

    • At minimum, it should split on spaces and remove extraneous spaces
    • Potentially deal with character types?
    • Potentially deal with the insides of parentheses?

  • Rewrite the current error tokenizers to use the new and better functions

  • Tokenizers make parser much, much nicer:

    • It is now quick and simple to see if something is an acid without having to go through all of the tests
    • It can be easy to distinguish between ionic and covalent

  • Make the oxyanion functions less messy and hacky. There must be a better way to tell the user what's wrong with the oxyanion names.

  • The ugly hacks around pure substances can be removed with a better tokenizer

  • Some things will need to be renamed and reorganized

  • Use more meta-programming to remove boilerplate code from the web interface.

6. Bugs

  • The program will get very upset if a substance is repeated:
    • e.g. H2O + H2O --> H2O
    • There is not much of a valid reason to enter this, but the program should handle this correctly