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From: Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Half-baked Ideas, New Projects
Message-ID: <15573@cup.portal.com>
Date: 9 Mar 89 05:40:05 GMT
References: <8903061529.AA11042@jade.berkeley.edu> <YY4fe6y00VsfQ1J=xP@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 23


   I've had some thoughts since the original post re: speedwriting implemen-
tations within wordprocessors:
     a.  In a sense, if the abbreviations are switchable  to/from abbrevia-
         ted state, then it would also, secondarily, work as a type of
         simple compression algorithm.  If words are truncated by an average
         of 50% while being typed, then file size, also, is reduced by half.
     b.  Learning the abbreviations is not restrictive, since you could begin
         to use them as you became familiar with them; there would be no
         necessity of learning the whole system at once.
     c.  Rob Peck suggested that a character-sequence or hot-key or some
         keystroke other than the RETURN character might be a better way to
         cause parsing out of the short forms.  I agree.
     d.  Abbreviations which might be appropriate for speedwriting are not
         always great for speedtyping.  Most people don't know their numbers
         too well, so using '2' as an abbreviation for two or too might not
         be easier to type (long stretch, look at the keyboard, slow, slow).
     e.  Abbreviating short words would be less useful than long ones, so you
         wouldn't want to 'waste' an abbreviation on 'at' or 'and', although
         some words, like 'the' are so commonly used, that perhaps a 't' would
         be suitable.
     I'm excited to see there's some interest and prior work on this.  Is
there more forthcoming?  Good sources for a dictionary?