RE: Netscape the Big Win

[tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:45 AM 7/21/95, Robert A. Rosenberg wrote:
>At 10:39 7/20/95, Timothy C. May wrote:
>>To state an obvious non-crypto use of such "modules," why do all major word
>>processing and page layout apps have their own "dictionaries"? Why do I
>>have to train the dictionaries of Word, Nisus, FrameMaker, MORE, etc.? That
>>there have not been "dictionary modules," for many and sundry reasons, is
>>telling. (Before anyone mentions it, one can on the Mac use things like
>>"Thunder" instead of the local dictionaries...this is not the same as a
>>module usable by all programs, but instead is a user choice to bypass the
>>local dictionaries. We could quibble for hours about whether this is in
>>fact a universal module or not.
>
>
>Since the support that Thunder 7 provides (with Wordprocessing and
>Wordprocessing-Like Programs that it supports) is indistinguishable from
>that provided by each program's integrated SpellChecker (along with T7
>providing a common set of "extra" User-Extendable Dictionaries as well as a
>Glossary/Mis-Spelling/Words-to-Replace Dictionary [ie: Pre-Prime the list
>of incorrectly spelled words for "Replace All" so the user's personal
>misspellings are automatically corrected without any interaction on his/her
>part]), I think the ball is initially in the court of those who claim it is
>not a universal module (admittedly only for those WPs it supports) to
>explain why is does not function as one would function if it existed.

Yes, I was the one who mentioned "Thunder." Should I justify why it is "not
a universal module"? I won't waste our time.

The essence, though, of having "parts" is that the suppliers of _other_
programs would not then have to supply the overlapping functions. In the
case of Thunder, it may be useful and all (which is what I said when I
mentioned it), but it's sufficiently obscure/unavailable that the makers of
my various word processing programs and page preparation programs supply
their own (and incompatible) dictionaries. This was my point.

--Tim May

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