Richard Mann

Greenhorn
+ Follow
since Nov 15, 2016
Merit badge: grant badges
For More
Cows and Likes
Cows
Total received
0
In last 30 days
0
Total given
0
Likes
Total received
0
Received in last 30 days
0
Total given
0
Given in last 30 days
0
Forums and Threads
Scavenger Hunt
expand Ranch Hand Scavenger Hunt
expand Greenhorn Scavenger Hunt

Recent posts by Richard Mann

Maneesh Godbole wrote:What is app? Smart phone app?
In that case your choice of language would be defined by the platform. e.g. For Android you would require Java. For iOS you would require Swift/Objective C
Besides these you can also choose cross platform options like Appcelerator

Richard Mann wrote:I would like to develop an app where I can enter a word/phrase, specify using tick boxes which online dictionaries/glossaries I want to search, hit Enter, then receive back a list of all the entries from the online dictionaries, ...
And speed is vital - I want the dictionary results/hits to be returned as fast as possible


Part of the latency (besides time taken by your app to process + network) is the time time taken by the online dictionaries to generate a result. If these are third party, there is nothing you can do to speed them up.



Thanks for your reply.
Oops, should have specified the platform/OS: Since I do my translation work on my laptop, then that's what I want to focus on initially because looking up multiple dictionaries would be very inconvenient on a smartphone. Even the largest smartphone screens would make such a task very awkward (since you'd be talking about dozens and dozens of hits). I suppose it would just about work on a tablet as far as screen size is concerned, but then again I need a proper keyboard since I can type far faster with a proper keyboard than I can with an on-screen one. At present I want to implement this project just as an aid to make my job easier, but even if I provided it online for download, the main people who'd be interested in it would be language students and translators, and again I can't imagine them trying to use such an app on anything other than a laptop, PC or Mac, purely due to screen size.
So for now I'm talking about laptops/PCs (running Windows, GNU/Linux or other OS) and Macs.
I'd like the app to work on as many operating systems (and versions of those OSes) as possible, so is there an app similar to Appcelerator that will do the same thing for non-mobile apps? (i.e. create once, then run on any hardware/OS?)

It's just occurred to me: Would it be possible to implement this dictionary project as a browser add-on? That would make sense since I want the dictionary hits to be displayed in a browser window and/or in separate tabs (one tab for each dictionary looked up). And if so, which programming language would be best suited to creating a browser add-on? Or could this be done with a scripting language?

As for latency (so that's the term! thanks for that), it doesn't appear I have much control over that since it boils down to the online dictionaries themselves. Obvious really when you think about it.
7 years ago
Also see http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cracker
cracker: one who makes unauthorized use of a computer, especially to tamper with data or programs (i.e. what the general public refers to as a "hacker")

To complicate matters, there are also terms such as "white hat hacker", "black hat hacker" and "grey hat hacker".
These terms come from cowboy movies where the "goodie" might wear a white hat and the "baddie" a black hat.
See: http://www.howtogeek.com/157460/hacker-hat-colors-explained-black-hats-white-hats-and-gray-hats/

In simplistic terms, white hat hackers are "goodies" (ethical) & black hat hackers are "baddies" (unethical/criminal).

And grey hat hackers. Well, they fall into a grey area, hence the term.
The first line of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_hat reads: "The term "grey hat" refers to a computer hacker or computer security expert who may sometimes violate laws or typical ethical standards, but does not have the malicious intent typical of a black hat hacker."

So of these three categories, only the black hat hackers are malicious. And it's black hat hackers that the general public is thinking of when it uses the term "hacker".
7 years ago
The general public uses the term "hacker" to mean "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data" (as in "to hack a computer system"), when strictly speaking that's a "cracker".
Strictly speaking, the word "hacker" means something like "a skilled programmer", but the general public doesn't use the word "hacker" in that sense.
See: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/hacker

Although technically the use of the term "hacker" when "cracker" should be used is incorrect, everyone can tell from the context what is meant.
I mean, if I said I'd hacked into the NSA, everyone would know what I meant. (Technically speaking that would have been cracking not hacking, but the meaning is clear).

A hacker is someone who hacks, which again to the general public involves the idea of illegally breaking into a computer system, but the original meaning of "to hack" was "to alter (a computer program)", "to write or refine computer programs skillfully"
See: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hack
7 years ago
Hi all

I'm looking for some advice please as to which programming language would best suit my needs.

My background is translation (German to English) and I'm especially interested in electronic dictionaries and have a few projects in mind, but the first I want to implement is as follows:

I want to create an app that will enable me to search multiple online German-English dictionaries/glossaries at once (e.g. https://www.dict.cc/, https://dict.leo.org, http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/, plus many more).
At present, if I want to look up a word or phrase, I have to go to each site in turn and enter the word/phrase I want to look up, which is time consuming and a pain in the butt.

I would like to develop an app where I can enter a word/phrase, specify using tick boxes which online dictionaries/glossaries I want to search, hit Enter, then receive back a list of all the entries from the online dictionaries, either listed on one (scrollable) page and/or in separate browser tabs. This would save me a lot of time, especially when searching more than a couple of online dictionaries/glossaries.

Are there any programming languages that would be particularly suited to this task? And speed is vital - I want the dictionary results/hits to be returned as fast as possible (obviously my internet connection speed plays a role in this, but that's a separate issue).

Thank you
7 years ago