Practical Bot Development

Practical Bot Development: Designing and Building Bots with Node.js and Microsoft Bot Framework
Explore the concept of bots and discover the motivation behind working with these new apps with messaging platforms. This book is an accessible resource teaching the basic concepts behind bot design and implementation. Each chapter builds on previous topics and, where appropriate, real working code is shown that implements the concepts. By just picking up a code editor, you can start creating smart, engaging, and useful bot experiences today. 

Practical Bot Development will teach you how to create your own bots on platforms like Facebook Messenger and Slack, incorporate extension APIs, and apply AI and ML algorithms in the cloud. By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped with the information to reach thousands of new users with the bots you create!

The book is a great resource for those looking to harness the benefits of building their own bots and leveraging the platform feasibility of them.

What You’ll Learn

• Understand the general architecture of a bot
• Distinguish between a great bot experience versus a bad bot experience.
• Explore the ideas behind natural language processing and apply them to bot development
• Implement real Messenger, Slack, and custom channel bots using Node.js and the Microsoft Bot Builder framework
• Deploy bots to Facebook Messenger and Slack

Who This Book Is For

Engineers, hobbyists, and  the design oriented community looking looking for an introduction to the technologies and concepts involved in building bots. The experience level could be from beginner to expert, although some familiarity with Node.js and APIs will be assumed.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to Chat Bots
Chapter 2: Chat Bot Natural Language Understanding
Chapter 3: Language Understanding Intelligent Service (LUIS)
Chapter 4: Conversation Design
Chapter 5: Introducing the Microsoft Bot Framework
Chapter 6: Diving into the Bot Builder SDK
Chapter 7: Building an Integrated Bot Experience
Chapter 8: Extending Channel Functionality
Chapter 9: Creating a New Channel Connector
Chapter 10: Making the Chat Bot Smarter
Chapter 11: Adaptive Cards and Custom Graphics
Chapter 12: Human Handoff
Chapter 13: Chat Bot Analytics
Chapter 14: Applying Our Learnings: Alexa Skills Kit