The material presented in this book ranges from the conceptual (e.g. `what is software architecture?’) to practical instructions for programmers (e.g. how to deal with GATE 6Follow the `support’ link from http://gate.ac.uk/ to subscribe to the mailing list. 8 Introduction exceptions) and linguists (e.g. how to write a pattern grammar). Furthermore, GATE’s highly extensible nature means that new functionality is constantly being added in the form
of new plugins. Important functionality is as likely to be located in a plugin as it is to be integrated into the GATE core. This presents something of an organisational challenge. Our (no doubt imperfect) solution is to divide this book into three parts. Part I covers installation, using the GATE Developer GUI and using ANNIE, as well as providing some background and theory.