Spell checkers [was Re: complexity

Addressing the last points in reverse order...

I think that feature that turns off ALT text is really neat.  It never
occurred to me with all the effort we go through to add ALT text that it's
an actual problem for some folks.  Very very interesting!

Now on to spell checking...

I personally find spelling checkers very helpful.

It's true that they miss homonyms like reed vs read, but I don't make many
of those errors.  Most of my errors are typos that the spell checker does
catch, e.g. "comlexity".   

And theoretically a spell checker that knew grammar could catch a lot of
the homonyms.  For example, it would catch

  eye don't 

  and knot yet

I don't know if there are any commercial spell checkers like that, but I'd
be really surprised if it weren't already a senior computer science project
somewhere or part of some companies marketing feature wishlist.

(OK so I do make some homonym type spelling errors, like in the last
sentence, but a grammatically informed spell checker would have caught it.)

-------


Len

At 06:40 PM 3/4/99 +0000, Silas S. Brown wrote:
>> You are taking all this from a rather personal viewpoint, which is not very
>> helpful when considering Learning Difficulties.
>> 
>> My comments are specific to non-readers and those learning to read.
>
>Oh right - I thought you were talking about giving a checking device to 
>fully-literate web page authors and expecting them to use it.
>
>Four those learning two reed, eye don't think spell checkers and sew 
>on can bee any reel substitute four human teachers, at least knot yet.  
>(My checker says that this is perfect, four egg sample.)  Maybe ewe have
>had moor success with them than aye have.
>
>Anyway, hope the alt thing's useful.
>
>Regards
>
>-- Silas S Brown, St John's College Cambridge UK
http://epona.ucam.org/~ssb22/
>
>"We cannot all be masters" - Shakespeare
>
>
>
-------
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Universal Design Engineer, Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Adjunct Professor, Electrical Engineering
Temple University

Ritter Hall Annex, Room 423, Philadelphia, PA 19122
kasday@acm.org        
(215} 204-2247 (voice)
(800) 750-7428 (TTY)

Received on Thursday, 4 March 1999 22:00:42 UTC