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IDSgrep 0.1

I've just released the first packaged version of IDSgrep, which is an implementation of the ideas I posted last month about Ideographic Description Sequences. It's meant to bring the user-friendliness of grep to kanji dictionaries. Compiling it will require the usual Unix tools, and using it effectively will require a copy of KanjiVG, but you can look at the screenshot of it in action on the SF.JP site.

It'd be really nice if I could publish a paper about this. I'm looking at some academic-type computer science conferences, but it might actually be more on-topic for the more industrial or open-source type of meeting. If any readers have suggestions on what might be a good venue, I'd like to hear them.

2 comments

Somewhat off-topic remark - the Wikipedia article "Koto (instrument)" has this sentence: The character for koto is 箏, although 琴 is often used, but 琴 usually refers to another instrument, the kin. 箏, is also read as sō in certain contexts. I suppose that becoming literate in Japanese requires a high degree of alertness and sensitivity to context. Axel - 2012-01-29 14:29

True, although I'm not sure it's all that much different from other languages. Very few languages have, universally, just one spelling for each meaning and just one pronunciation for each spelling. Consider the character "2", which in English is equivalent to the spelled-out form "two" (which is the same as "too" or "to" depending on context)... except when it's equivalent to the spelled-out form "seco," as in "2nd". In Japanese, there are more characters that have that kind of behaviour, but it happens for the same reasons. Matt - 2012-01-30 11:17