Re: VMs: Word structure, glyphs...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Matthew,

At 01:48 14/07/2003 +0100, Matthew Platts wrote:
> > Can anyone
> > give a guess how big the potential tree - ie, the dictionary - would have
> > to be for this to make sense? For example, a six "letter" word would imply
> > a choice at each one of its six letters - hence that one word implied a
> > minimum of six choices in the dictionary... so the dictionary size could
> > get out of control very quickly.
>
> Not all the configurations need to be used - why would they? The author
> might leave the vast majority of settings empty for future use.

AIUI, this general hypothesis seeks to explain the type of variation 
observed in VMS words by proposing that words are actually paths through a 
gigantic tree of knowledge - let's call it the word-as-path hypothesis 
(WAP-H). The question I'm asking is simply - given that every letter would 
require a choice (between alternate paths) to be made, what would the 
minimum/likely size of such a dictionary be?

The alternative is that someone making an already large tree would want to 
fill it with redundant branches - but is that really very likely?

How to make such a gigantic tree of knowledge usable is also an interesting 
question... which I'll leave open. :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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