Re: Lojban program and conlang software ideas

On Sat, 6 May 2000, Peter Clark wrote:

>         Next order of business: has anyone considered starting up a Open
> Source/Free Software (take your pick of terms) line of conlang software
> and tools? How many programmers do we have on the list? I really wish that
> a.) I had more time and b.) knew a decent programming language (I am still
> teaching myself C in my officially non-existant free time), because I
> would try to whip up something for others to work off of. I am aware of
> Kura, Boudewijn's language database program/Shoebox replacement, but it
> would be interesting to see a truly cross-platform set of tools be
> developed. Here just a wee little wish list...
>
> o Random word generator - I have found several on the web, but aside from
> o Dictionary program - something where the user could type in the word and
> o Transformer (I can't think of a better name--it's getting late) - this
> o Grammar generator - This would be incredibly cool if someone could
> o Simulator - Since I am now officially dreaming, imagine a simulator
>
Well, I'm not really interested in automating the creation of my languages
- for me the joy is in creating words, rules and example sentences
myself.

However, serious parts of Kura are quite cross-platform. There's no reason
why the Kura webserver couldn't be run on Windows - any version, and I'm
considering converting the GUI to pure Qt, which is cross-platform, too
(for those with deep pockets - but the Qt developers licence costs less
than Windows 2000 + Microsoft Office + a decent graphics suite).

But if you were to start writing autogeneration tools, you really need
to consider Python - C is a language you learn for your curriculum
vitae, not to be productive in. What I'd be interested in is a decent
cross-language sound correspondences _analyzer_. i.e., a module that
analyzes to lexicons for regular sound correspondences for semantically
close lexemes. That would help Kura no end ;-).

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org