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A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

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Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#121

Post by Someone »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #16
Someone wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the basic word list, possibly tries ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie ), DAGs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph#Data_co... ), or Bloom filter ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter )

according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ispell ispell (1971) already used Levenshtein Distance (although from the article it is not stated if this already existed in the original version, or if it was added in later years).

Levenshtein distance up to 1, according to that article. If you have a hierarchical structure (trie or a DAG; in some sense, a DAG is a trie, but stored more efficiently, with the disadvantage that adding or removing words is hard) with valid words, it is not hard to check what words satisfy that. If you only do the inexact search after looking for the exact word and finding it missing I think it also won’t be too slow when given ‘normal’ text to spell-check.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#122

Post by fluidcruft »

keiferski wrote: post #19

Is there a reason why Apple's iPhone spellcheck is often really poor, significantly worse than both LLMs and just...human eyes? I often find myself butchering the spelling of a word in a way where the correct answer is obvious to human eyes (probably because of "typoglycemia" [1]) and an AI LLM immediately understands what I meant to say, but Apple's spellcheck has "No Guesses Found." Does anyone else have this exper…

I feel the same way about Android's. It just seems like spell check used to be so much better then years ago. But I'm not sure whether it's comparing mobile with desktop expectations. It really seems extremely dumb on Android.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#123

Post by elzbardico »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #45
keiferski wrote: post #19

Is there a reason why Apple's iPhone spellcheck is often really poor, significantly worse than both LLMs and just...human eyes? I often find myself butchering the spelling of a word in a way where the correct answer is obvious to human eyes (probably because of "typoglycemia" [1]) and an AI LLM immediately understands what I meant to say, but Apple's spellcheck has "No Guesses Found." Does anyone else have this exper…

Yes but it’s much broader. Just in general the lack of Steve Jobs noticing these glaring issues and coming down hard to solve them is pretty clear. I remember when macbooks briefly came out with a ridiculously bright standby led that required Black electrical tape over if you wanted to sleep with it in the house. Shortly after no more status leds on any MacBook (thank you!). Nowadays i find non stop little annoyances…

That light was really helpful to do the occasional late night visit to the bathroom in a home where I lived where there were no light controls at the bedside.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#124

Post by elzbardico »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #86
gitpusher wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Apple and heard a lot of Steve stories. He really did personally approve everything. He would be sitting in a room, and team leads would all line up to give their quick 2-minute update. So it's the MacBook Air guy's turn. He comes in and places his prototype down in front of Steve. Steve opens the lid. Two seconds later he picks up the laptop and heaves it so hard it skipped across the table like a stone…

>Two seconds later he picks up the laptop and heaves it so hard it skipped across the table like a stone on water: "I said fxxking INSTANT ON!!" When did the OG MacBook Air have instant on at launch in 2008? IIRC the M1 brough Instant on and Jobs wasn't around anymore.

Most macbooks I remember since a long time ago were pretty much instant on way before apple sillicon. Maybe you had some corporate crapware installed in yours/.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#125

Post by elzbardico »

IshKebab wrote: post #115
abullinan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a village. Also to be successful in tech it takes an asshole. No way around it. At some point all successful companies share an overly aggressive visionary. The entire company doesn’t need to be toxic, but the apex does. If you don’t like it, don’t climb the ladder.

I don't think it requires being an arsehole. Just being firm. That doesn't require arseholery.

People will call someone who doesn't bend to the status quo an asshole.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#126

Post by elzbardico »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #75
zimpenfish wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From.the.overly.prominent.full.stop when searching textually in the url bar One of the most aggravating things in iOS. Trips me up almost every day (and it's been there for what? 10 years now?)

Wait until you realize that the icon of the period and spacebar don't at all line up to the touch area due to touch gravitation. You can tap slightly more on the spacebar side and still end up with a period. https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1ekszul/comment/lgn... So if you suffer from this it's not even your fault. You're literally hitting the spacebar but some incentive at Apple in their org structure has le…

This.is.incredibly.annoying.

But.you.took.a.weight.from.my.shoulders. I always.thought. I was an incompetent who couldn't hit the spacebar correctly.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#127

Post by elzbardico »

dehrmann wrote: post #58
kccqzy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually asked to build a spell checker in an interview. I immediately thought of Peter Norvig's article on spell corrector ( https://norvig.com/spell-correct.html ) and proceeded to explain. It turned out that the interviewer really wanted a spell checker not spell corrector : the program will only point out words not in the set of known words. I failed that interview by overengineering.

> I failed that interview by overengineering. Almost. You needed to clarify what the interviewer was asking and discover requirements. As much as HN likes to hate on coding interviews requiring specific algorithm knowledge, determining requirements is very much part of the job, and engineers have a tendency to build what they want to build, not what the customer wants.

I don't care about people who like to overengineer things, as long as they are humble and have awareness of this tendency. Sometimes you need the extra power and creativity. If they are affable and don't take critics personally, they usually get in with the program easily.

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#128

Post by foundart »

jdsnape wrote: post #119
valiant55 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking about Linux/Linus the other day. How will Linux fair when Linus is no longer with us?

Fare, not fair (I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter but I couldn’t help it in a discussion on quality)

In comments on an article about spellchecking no less

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#129

Post by rkagerer »

canucker2016 wrote: post #118
rkagerer wrote: post #59

This article ends too soon! Show me the techniques and solutions those clever programmers of old came up with. Did I miss a link somewhere to subsequent posts?

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880979

Thanks!

Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)

#130

Post by dang »

gnabgib wrote: post #2

(2008) Popular in: 2023 (314 points, 180 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971924 2020 (363 points, 143 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25296900 2012 (94+156 points, 70+61 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4640658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3466388

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971924 - Feb 2023 (180 comments)

A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25296900 - Dec 2020 (143 comments)

A Spellchecker Used to Be a Major Feat of Software Engineering (2008) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10789019 - Dec 2015 (29 comments)

A Spellchecker Used to Be a Major Feat of Software Engineering - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4640658 - Oct 2012 (70 comments)

A Spellchecker Used To Be A Major Feat of Software Engineering - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3466388 - Jan 2012 (61 comments)

A Spellchecker Used to Be a Major Feat of Software Engineering - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=212221 - June 2008 (22 comments)

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