Noah, the ultimate dictionary project

"Let them be open, we want to be FREE."

Noah : Frequently Asked Questions


Q1. What's in a name?

Choosing names is difficult . My first idea? eDict. Boy, was I content with myself. Then I've read this. It got me thinking. Finally I've settled for Noah .

Q2. Program fails to install.

I got two reports like this so far. It's impossible to tell what's wrong without seeing it, but my guess is this: the database is really big (>5MB). It's very likely that PalmPilot will refuse to sync it if there is not enough memory. Please double-check that you have enough free memory.

Q3. The database is too big.

It was the most frequently voiced complaint for versions 0.50 beta, 0.50 beta2 and 0.51. Luckily, this is no longer true. Starting with version 0.60 there is a choice of four different dictionaries of various sizes so that user can choose one that best suits his/her needs. All four are based on WordNet 1.6 database, definitions are exactly the same, bigger versions just have more of them. Here's a quick guide to available dictionaries:

Q4. Does Noah support TGRpro's compact flash?

Noah runs on TGRpro just fine but it doesn't know how to use it's compact flash memory.
It would be nice to have the database on flash and have the ability to read the data directly from there without wasting memory. I would like to have this feature. I probably won't do it. It would mean a lot for work just to support a very small number of users. But... source code is published, there is nothing that can stop you from coding this for yourself.

Q5. Why is it so slow?

Indeed, sometimes it takes a while to display a definition from WordNet database. It's just the way it's written: doing the appropriate compression makes it so slow. So either I'm an incompetent programmer and it could be made faster and retain high compression ratio or it's just a fact of life that 20Mhz processors are not that fast to begin with. I like to think the latter so this will be the official answer unless someone will prove me wrong by rewriting the code to be blazingly fast and having even better compression.
The way I see it the appropriate question is: does it have to be faster to be useful? The answer (for me personally) is no. It still beats any paper dictionary.

Q6. Can I help you in coding?

Boy, I wish someone had actually asked that question. In my dreams I picture myself answering "But, of course, the sky is the limit and the world waits to be dominated by all-night-hackers so join me in making the best dictionary in the Universe".
©2000 Krzysztof Kowalczyk