Zompist Bboard Again

So I caught the coding bug again. Initially I was wondering which part of CLanC to resume work on, but then I decided to just start all over, keeping maybe just the name and SCA syntax.

The idea is to make everything pipeline based. If we're clever about nodes and datatypes passed around, it should suffice for most conlanging needs. The pipedream - pun intended - is to eventually integrate drawio into it and just draw pipelines. Here's a quick mockup of what I was thinking:


Though initially pipes will be text based. Rest of the wishlist is:

- Import and export to and from most common formats for storing lexicons, incl. spreadsheets and databases.
- Be as generic as possible: The program won't dictate structure of lexicon entries at all. So users will have to help themselves in this regard, incl. indicating which column contains the conlang lexical items.
- Providing a builtin generic SCA engine, but also allowing for external SCA plugins.
- Chaining together multiple pipes in complex logic, so that you can derive lexicons through multiple diachronic stages. You could also have dedicated pipes to derive e.g. pronouns or inflection.
- Eventually supporting some generic builtin vocab and inflection preview.
- Nodes would include: Data input, Data output, Filter, SCA, Inflection (essentially an SCA that applies a table of changes over every input) and Overwrite (for irregular developments, folk etymologies, etc.)
- Of course it'll have worker threads, with each thread executing the pipe or even a single node for a single lexical entry. We mean business. Also add some kind of real-time profiling (avg node execution times, progress bars, etc)

I don't know. Maybe I'll start doing the skeleton of it in the coming weeks. I've been also itching to learn a sexy new language, but that would pose additional difficulties, and using 3rd party libraries and projects may be an uphill battle for anything other than the few well-supported languages.

I am rewriting my journal article that I have to give in for mid-January in LibreOffice. LibreOffice just closed on me several times when I tried to safe my Writer file. When I managed to open my file again, I did not manage to save it. Instead, it closed of its own accord again and again. I ended up reestablishing the initial settings and I managed to save the file after that. It seems to have actually saved and I can open it again now. However, I still have a bunch of random temporary files in the folder where I have the article file saved and am back to the initial settings. Should I delete the files? Should I try and reestablish the settings e.g. language?

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:31 am Should I delete the files? Should I try and reestablish the settings e.g. language?

Delete the files, expunge all WYSIWYG editors from your system and use LaTeX, would be my advice.

(In fairness, I have LibreOffice installed, but only because I occasionally need to interact with Word documents.)

Zju wrote: ↑Mon Dec 05, 2022 1:49 pm So I caught the coding bug again. Initially I was wondering which part of CLanC to resume work on, but then I decided to just start all over, keeping maybe just the name and SCA syntax.

The idea is to make everything pipeline based. If we're clever about nodes and datatypes passed around, it should suffice for most conlanging needs. The pipedream - pun intended - is to eventually integrate drawio into it and just draw pipelines.

Only just noticed this post. It seems like a pretty cool idea to me! I’d be very interested to see if it works.

I don't know. Maybe I'll start doing the skeleton of it in the coming weeks. I've been also itching to learn a sexy new language, but that would pose additional difficulties, and using 3rd party libraries and projects may be an uphill battle for anything other than the few well-supported languages.

Haskell would be suitable for this (though then again I say that about most things). Aside from how nice Haskell is in and of itself, my brassica library already provides support for the MDF dictionary format and the Brassica sound change applier, which could give a convenient place to start. The main disadvantage might be GUI support, but there’s ways around that (I wrote a whole article on the subject), and besides it sounds to me that a GUI frontend would be a separate piece of software anyhow.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:33 am

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:31 am Should I delete the files? Should I try and reestablish the settings e.g. language?

Delete the files, expunge all WYSIWYG editors from your system and use LaTeX, would be my advice.

That might be good advice for cutting-edge techies, but less so for someone who is not a cutting-edge techie.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:33 am

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:31 am Should I delete the files? Should I try and reestablish these settings e.g. language?

Delete the files, expunge all WYSIWYG editors from your system and use LaTeX, would be my advice.

(In fairness, I have LibreOffice installed, but only because I occasionally need to interact with Word documents.)

I second that advice - WYSIWYG word processors are an abomination, to which LaTeX is far superior. (I do admit to using LibreOffice, but primarily for editing my resume, as many potential employers and recruiters expect resumes to be in Word format.)

I have added history completion and support for FlashForth, including support for error detection, to zeptocom.js, my web Forth terminal (hosted at https://tabemann.github.io/zeptocomjs/zeptocom.html, GitHub at https://github.com/tabemann/zeptocomjs).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:59 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:33 am

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:31 am Should I delete the files? Should I try and reestablish these settings e.g. language?

Delete the files, expunge all WYSIWYG editors from your system and use LaTeX, would be my advice.

(In fairness, I have LibreOffice installed, but only because I occasionally need to interact with Word documents.)

I second that advice - WYSIWYG word processors are an abomination, to which LaTeX is far superior.

Thing is, based on all I've seen of MacAnDàil on this board so far, I've got the impression that he's far from a technophile. In fact, he seems to be very sceptical about modern technology. So it seems unlikely to me that he'll put a lot of time and effort into learning a completely new way of writing documents on a computer just because some people who are a lot more enthusiastic about software than him tell him to do that.

MacAnDàil: I don't really know enough about Libreoffice and its bugs to understand what might be causing your problem, but my instincts tell me that deleting the files and starting from scratch is, unfortunately, probably the least bad approach.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:02 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:59 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:33 am

Delete the files, expunge all WYSIWYG editors from your system and use LaTeX, would be my advice.

(In fairness, I have LibreOffice installed, but only because I occasionally need to interact with Word documents.)

I second that advice - WYSIWYG word processors are an abomination, to which LaTeX is far superior.

Thing is, based on all I've seen of MacAnDàil on this board so far, I've got the impression that he's far from a technophile. In fact, he seems to be very sceptical about modern technology. So it seems unlikely to me that he'll put a lot of time and effort into learning a completely new way of writing documents on a computer just because some people who are a lot more enthusiastic about software than him tell him to do that.

MacAnDàil: I don't really know enough about Libreoffice and its bugs to understand what might be causing your problem, but my instincts tell me that deleting the files and starting from scratch is, unfortunately, probably the least bad approach.

If one wants to stick with LibreOffice, I'd suggest opening the file, exporting it in a different format, restarting LibreOffice, and importing the exported file; this should deal with the use case where something is corrupt in your file that is causing crashes.

Thank you for the last two comments, especially remembering and taking into account who I am. WYSIWYG might seem an abomination to a programmer but they're probably the only workable for any non-programmer.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 12:25 am WYSIWYG might seem an abomination to a programmer but they're probably the only workable for any non-programmer.

They’re not an abomination at all — I just find them nearly impossible to use.

PS I have learnt to use two new applications within the past few years: Toolbox and LexiquePro. Both are for my dictionary project and only seem to work on Microsoft, which is the main reason why my computer is Microsoft (other than the availability and price). Also, the document is in .docx because that is what is asked of me. I use LibreOffice rather than Word because that's paying. My thesis supervisor doesn't even accept .odt.

In any case, I try to do what the computing professor Cal Newport proposes in Digital Minimalism, to use only those digital technology that significantly improve our lives in the ways that do so.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:08 am PS I have learnt to use two new applications within the past few years: Toolbox and LexiquePro. Both are for my dictionary project and only seem to work on Microsoft, which is the main reason why my computer is Microsoft (other than the availability and price). Also, the document is in .docx because that is what is asked of me. I use LibreOffice rather than Word because that's paying. My thesis supervisor doesn't even accept .odt.

I’m using Toolbox on Linux using Wine. It seems to work fine — Toolbox even comes with a separate Wine version!

As for the thesis, well, I can only say that a requirement for .docx severely limits your options, and I wasn’t aware of that constraint earlier.

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:16 am

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:08 am PS I have learnt to use two new applications within the past few years: Toolbox and LexiquePro. Both are for my dictionary project and only seem to work on Microsoft, which is the main reason why my computer is Microsoft (other than the availability and price). Also, the document is in .docx because that is what is asked of me. I use LibreOffice rather than Word because that's paying. My thesis supervisor doesn't even accept .odt.

I’m using Toolbox on Linux using Wine. It seems to work fine — Toolbox even comes with a separate Wine version!

I was just thinking of Wine myself here

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:16 am As for the thesis, well, I can only say that a requirement for .docx severely limits your options, and I wasn’t aware of that constraint earlier.

I must say that it is unfortunate that they require .docx, and surprising too, since many journals require LaTeX.

I have implemented yet another particle demo for zeptoforth using an SSD1306-based display, in this case using zeptoforth's "action scheduler" to handle updating each of the particles and updating the display without devoting a task, with its great overhead, to each of them.

I don't use Libreoffice, but not for any of the reasons given by other people--I don't use it because it takes up too much space on my computer.

I changed the system language on the Linux side of my computer to English, as part of a reinstall. I thought that might make reporting the exact wording of error messages easier. Interesting experience.

I have added a feature to zeptoforth where entering control-C at the serial console reboots the microcontroller even if the console is not responding, provided it is not wedged too hard. Also, in my Forth web terminal, zeptocom.js, when in zeptoforth mode one can now click a Reboot button, which sends a control-C character to the microcontroller to trigger rebooting. (All this should reduce the wear and tear on the USB ports on my laptop, as previously whenever my Raspberry Pi Pico became unresponsive I would have to physically power cycle it by unplugging and replugging the USB as it lacks a reset button and my soldering-fu is not good enough for me to try jury-rigging my own.)

Does anyone know of a good IPA keyboard layout for Linux? I’m using SIL’s keyboard currently, but that requires Keyman, which doesn’t seem to work too well on my machine…

w00t! I added something called an "attention" key, mapped to Control-T, to zeptoforth, which is like Control-C except it can be programmed to do things other than simply reboot the microcontroller. Currently the only thing it does is takes another character, and only 'z', which tells it to send an exception (a new feature in and of itself) to the main task so it, if uncaught or re-raised, can return to the REPL.