Re: Questions about alternative dicts..

[Kevin Atkinson]

Sudhakar Chandrasekharan wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am in the process of packaging aspell's alternative dictionaries into
> Debian GNU/Linux packages.  I have a couple of questions -
> 
> * Should I be packaging each alternative dictionary in each available size
> into a package of its own?  I mean should I have seperate packages for
> british_small, british_medium, british_large, ..., american_small etc.?
> What exactly is the difference between the various sizes?  Is it speed or
> size?

The diffrence is size.  This dictinaris are almost identical to the
ispell dictionaries.  From ispell's README file:

    The English-language dictionary comes in four sizes: small,
    medium, large, and extra-large.  I recommend using the medium
    dictionary unless you are very short on space.  The small and
    medium dictionaries have been hand-checked against a paper
    dictionary to improve their accuracy.  This is not true of the two
    larger ones.  The large and extra-large dictionaries contain
    less-frequently-used words, and most sites will not want to pay
    the price of storing them, especially because they may contain
    errors.  Also, a large dictionary can hide misspellings of short
    words because there is some similar word that nobody uses.  (For
    example, the crossword-puzzle favorite "ort" can hide misspellings
    of "or".)
> 
> * Debian GNU/Linux allows packages to have a post-installation script.  If
> the difference between the various dictionary sizes is speed, I shall
> probably create one package per alternate language and let the user choose
> a size at install time (via the post-installation script).

How does debian handle the diffrent sizes for ispell dictionaries?  If
you do give the user a choice you should also display the informative
information in the file "config" which has the above quote in it (with
minor modifications)

-- 
Kevin Atkinson
address@hidden
http://metalab.unc.edu/kevina/