Applications are drawn from expert systems, natural language interfaces, symbolic mathematics, probability bounds, project simulation, and visual object recognition.

He recommended that users of the book have a firm grounding in some programming language, or be willing to put in extra effort.

The code examples were highlighted as being the strength of the book, being small enough to understand, but large enough to illustrate and motivate important techniques in symbolic programming.

The supplied sample code for rule-based systems, and version space learning was highlighted as supporting the text quite well.

[9]: xiv  Cited subject areas included pattern matching,[9]: 168 [9]: 213  logic programming,[9]: 367  and Lisp interpreter development.