On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 06:50:41PM -0300, Maurício CA wrote:
bitspeak is a small proof of concept application that allows writing text using only two commands (yes/no, 1/2, top/down etc.). It is intended to show how people with disabilities similar to Stephen Hawking's (i.e., good cognitive hability, but very few movements) can write text.
There is a parallel between data compression algorithms and this sort of task, expressing a sentence in the minimal number of bits via compression also minimized the number of yes/no questions that need to be asked. In particular, a Huffman coding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding is ideal for this (assuming you just are taking advantage of frequency analysis). A dynamic Huffman Tree will even adapt as it is being used to whatever the current language is. Huffman Trees are easy and fun to implement too. John -- John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈ - http://notanumber.net/