I keep a dictionary and thesaurus. They're actually pretty useful when you need to think of names for projects. I personally haven't found an electronic dictionary that lets you 'browse' as well as a physical one, but if anyone knows of one I'd like to check it out.
If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
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Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#42Printed dictionaries had one advantage that hasn't been superseded by the web: They didn't try to deliberately give false information. I've noticed that some dictionary sites give entries for words that are spelt incorrectly. And I don't mean British vs American spelling or words whose spelling is in flux. I mean flat out wrong. I presume they do this to get more hits from people searching for the wrong word. And no, they don't always tell you it's wrong. (I'll see if I can find an example and update my message.)
Another irritation is that you can find support for any possible meaning of a word or phrase if look around -- with sites like urbandictionary.com all it takes is 1 person to invent a meaning and if you're not careful, you'd think that it's an accepted usage. It takes way more work now to be sure of any result.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#43Obsolete editions of "Java: A Beginner's Guide"
or any books about javascript frameworks that are older than a year
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#44Printed dictionaries had one advantage that hasn't been superseded by the web: They didn't try to deliberately give false information. I've noticed that some dictionary sites give entries for words that are spelt incorrectly. And I don't mean British vs American spelling or words whose spelling is in flux. I mean flat out wrong. I presume they do this to get more hits from people searching for the wrong word. And no,…
> Printed dictionaries had one advantage that hasn't been superseded by the web: They didn't try to deliberately give false information. I've noticed that some dictionary sites give entries for words that are spelt incorrectly. And I don't mean British vs American spelling or words whose spelling is in flux. I mean flat out wrong. I presume the do this to get more hits.
They did it, for the same reason, or at least to prevent copiers stealing their customers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry .
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#45I was very glad I still had my printed dictionaries that day they digged the cables over by accident. I'm not going to loose a large part of my functional literacy, just because the power/internet goes out. Even if it only happened one time for the rest of my life, it would be worth the 20cm of shelf space it claimed.
> I'm not going to loose a large part of my functional literacy, just because the power/internet goes out.
Is your functional literacy really so dictionary-bound that a temporary outage makes you lose a large part of it? (Maybe it is! But I think that, for most people, referring to a dictionary, online or in print, is an occasional act.)
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#46Printed dictionaries are basically ordered lists with metadata, so look-ups are O(lg n), and by a human no less! Online dictionaries are likely to be backed by, well, a dictionary , which allows for O(1) look-ups.
> Online dictionaries are likely to be backed by, well, a dictionary, which allows for O(1) look-ups.
I think that this is true only under simplifying assumptions of a sort that would also allow one to claim that dictionary look ups are O(1) (with constant equal to the size of the dictionary).
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#47Printed dictionaries are basically ordered lists with metadata, so look-ups are O(lg n), and by a human no less! Online dictionaries are likely to be backed by, well, a dictionary , which allows for O(1) look-ups.
> Online dictionaries are likely to be backed by, well, a dictionary, which allows for O(1) look-ups. I think that this is true only under simplifying assumptions of a sort that would also allow one to claim that dictionary look ups are O(1) (with constant equal to the size of the dictionary).
I was thinking more along the lines of a hash map.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#48Printed dictionaries are basically ordered lists with metadata, so look-ups are O(lg n), and by a human no less! Online dictionaries are likely to be backed by, well, a dictionary , which allows for O(1) look-ups.
The advanced of printed dictionaries is that there is no latency in the loading of information onto a page.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#49I was very glad I still had my printed dictionaries that day they digged the cables over by accident. I'm not going to loose a large part of my functional literacy, just because the power/internet goes out. Even if it only happened one time for the rest of my life, it would be worth the 20cm of shelf space it claimed.
> I'm not going to loose a large part of my functional literacy, just because the power/internet goes out. Is your functional literacy really so dictionary-bound that a temporary outage makes you lose a large part of it? (Maybe it is! But I think that, for most people, referring to a dictionary, online or in print, is an occasional act.)
I would say that any persons functional literacy will be enhanced with access to a dictionary (digital or printed), unless they can the dictionary by heart. I wouldn't called that bound. I would just call it putting in your best effort.
I personally confer a dictionary whenever I write more than a paragraph of text. Most people don't do that, but they should.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#50I recently tackled a book that was rather above my French reading level. It only took about half an hour spent fumbling with my Larousse before I plunked down $6 on their iOS app so that I could get back to reading my book. That weekend, my trusty old dictionary and I paid a visit to the used bookstore. It's hard for me to imagine an information technology that's been more thoroughly superseded than the print diction…
I've had the reverse impression over recent years: dictionary sites have become so bloated and unusable, between ads, comment systems, inefficient JS, and abysmal "mobile-friendly" pages I've gone back to my old hardcover whenever convenient. I imagine part of this is use-case, however: I tend to use a dictionary infrequently, mainly when I'm reading with the shelf within reach, so the overhead of launching an app or navigating to a website is a lot higher than practicing a second language, where you might keep the app open.
And of course it never lost its place as the canonical Scrabble-checker.