COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	@make(letterhead,Phone"497-4330",Who "John McCarthy", Logo Old, Department CSD)                    
C00005 ENDMK
C⊗;
@make(letterhead,Phone"497-4330",Who "John McCarthy", Logo Old, Department CSD)                    
@style[indent 5]
@blankspace ( 8 lines)
@begin(address)
Professor Roger Schank
Chairman
Computer Science Dept.
10 Hillhouse
Yale University
Newhaven, CT 06520
@end(address)
@greeting(Dear Roger:)
@begin (body)

	I can't take the time for as detailed a comparison
as you request of Drew McDermott with all others his age in AI.
If he were here at Stanford, he would be compared with Doug Lenat.
He is as productive as Lenat but perhaps no one thing he has done
has excited the attention of Lenat's AM.  As we are doing with
Lenat, I would want to wait longer before considering him for tenure.
However, I would expect him to qualify for tenure, and I suppose
I would recommend if it were "up or out" right now.

	He is definitely a leader of opinion in AI and a force for
soundness, challenging flashy claims.  His work on time and causality
seems promising to me, but I have not reached a definite conclusion
about its success.  His approach to non-monotonic reasoning,
the non-monotonic logic of his AI Journal and ACM Journal papers,
seems unsuccessful to me, although it opened up the field along
with my own work on circumscription.  I'm still betting on
circumscription.

	Sorry not to be more helpful, but I'm really not very good
about keeping up with other people's work and having definite
comparative opinions.

@end(body)
Sincerely,
 
   
    
John McCarthy
Professor of Computer Science