What became of James Hague? What did he do after he stopped blogging?
A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
131–140 of 210 posts
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#132Is 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 have the same experience. Some things I’ve noticed: - they really don’t want you saying bad words of any kind. - they do not look at context at all - they focus too much on the first letter of the word for suggestions
> they really don’t want you saying bad words of any kind.
Not true anymore, I just typed fuck in this comment without having to fight it. They made a change I think last year and they even announced it.
> they do not look at context at all
Also not true. It's true that they're not perfect at it, but replacement after you typed 2 more words happen specifically because it can tell better what you want to say. Sometimes works against you because language is highly personal.
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#133Can confirm. The first time I saw an automatic spellchecker was probably with WordStar around 1989, and it blew me away. How can the computer know all the words? That's insane! Sounds lame, but it's true. It was a different world.
Since you're old enough, here's a question for you. Do you remember if at the time the first spellcheckers were invented, people were negative on spellcheckers, because that would mean that soon people would stop learning how to spell and just general dumbing down? It seems that anything that helps people gets this reaction these days. On the one hand, the argument 100% resonates with me. On the other hand, spelling…
I think this happens every time something gets automated away, and in a way it's true. I'm sure a lot more accountants knew 123x27 by heart before than they do now. The problem is LLMs take out the whole process of thinking, and that is going to be a problem: you generally need to think even when you're not in front of a screen.
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Hypo", meaning low; "glyc-", meaning sugar; and "emia", meaning of the blood. "Low sugar of the blood". (With apologies to chubbyemu.) Since "typo" comes from "typography", it roughly means "symbolic". So "typoglycemia" should mean "symbolic sugar of the blood". Low typos in your blood would be "hypotypemia". I have no idea why "typoglycemia" refers to a human ability to autocorrect, but it brings me joy, so I'm not…
Funny that we know the same obscure youtuber.
Really not so obscure: 3.17M subscribers.
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#135It is 2025 and the best spell checker is a search engine. Numerous time an application will not provide the correct word. Only solution is to try the word in a search engine and try using in a sentence if that fails. In my opinion, this is where ML/AL local model, no internet required, would be the most beneficial today. Even had to use a search engine with, "thoughts and opi" because I forgot how to spell opinion be…
Some new way of Stenography. That everyone can use. Would make taking notes so much easier.
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#136Earlier 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…
Sounds like a petulant child. Wholly unnecessary to get his point across.
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Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#137Is 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…
> Is there a reason why ... Yes: Apple doesn't care. > Does anyone else... Yes. I just typed in "Tipografical earer" - and iOS 18.6 suggested "Tipograxical" for the first word, and one of "eared", "eager", and "eater" for the second word.
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Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#138Is 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…
The spell check is truly bad. It boggles the mind how this is even possible given how solved the problem is everywhere else. Also the period being to the right of the spacebar such that it gets hit instead of space. So annoying!
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#139Is 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…
> Is there a reason why Apple's iPhone spellcheck is often really poor, significantly worse than both LLMs and just...human eyes?
It's somewhat funny that human performance is seen as a baseline here, and not the pinnacle of achievement to aim for.
(I agree with you. I just find it entertaining.)
Re: A spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering (2008)
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
In this case, both fair and fare are words in English. Which shows that spell checking needs to know a lot about grammar and context to work in general. Basically you need an LLM. Or if not a 'large language model', perhaps at least a small language model.