Project Name Change

[progfolio]

prior art:

• https://github.com/stardiviner/sdcv.el
• https://github.com/manateelazycat/sdcv

The first package is on MELPA. It would be better for the project to disambiguate itself from these previous projects.

[tecosaur]

I'll be the first to admit the current name is somewhat uninspired :sweat_smile: might you have any suggestions?

[progfolio]

Nothing specific yet, but the name:

• should be short and unique.

The package name will act as a pseudo elisp namespace. Keeping it short makes the code easier to read/write/maintain.

• should communicate the purpose of the package over its implementation details.

  For now this package is tied to sdcv, but that could change in the future for any number of reasons. Perhaps you want to expand it to be able to use other dictionary back-ends, perhaps sdcv changes its name or is superseded by a fork with a different name (stardict is itself a fork of stardic). By naming the package something that communicates the purpose (an Emacs dictionary interface) you aren't bound to the implementation details.

You could give a subtle nod to stardict by using something related to astrology, or go more general and use something related to dictionaries or language.

How about "lexic"? https://www.wordnik.com/words/lexic "lexic.el" sounds like "lexical"?

[tecosaur]

Thanks for the detailed response, I've found it helpful :smiley:

Since I'd quite like to make this open to other dict formats in the future (likely via a future GoldenDict CLI), and this is used for more than just definitions - lexic sounds like it could fit quite nicely! Thanks for the suggestion.

I'll try switching to that at some point within the next week.

[progfolio]

You're welcome. Another option is "lexis":

 noun: lexis

    the total stock of words in a language.
    "a notable loss of English lexis"
        the level of language consisting of vocabulary, as opposed to grammar or syntax.

Origin
1950s (denoting the wording in a piece of writing): from Greek, literally ‘word’ (see lexicon).

Though, I do like the way "lexic.el" works.

In any case I look forward to seeing this package develop. I have my own small sdcv Emacs interface, but I'd rather contribute to this one. I'll give the code a look over and tell you what I think.

[tecosaur]

Thanks :) This was hacked together over the period of ~2 days, so there are absolutely some rough edges at the moment - I'll try to smooth them over with the name change.

I look forward to your future contributions/comments!

[progfolio]

In all honesty, after looking over the code, I think it may be best to start fresh. There are some decent ideas, but everything is tied so tightly to sdcv. I may take a crack at writing something more generic.

[tecosaur]

For opening up more possibilities than just sdcv, I'm thinking chopping out a large chunk and re-implementing it in a more generic fashion will be what ends up happening.

Despite the current state of the code, it's still my intent to have this end up as a generic "word info" package supporting multiple backends.

Just be warned that if you make a new project I'm liable to wander over and blatantly steal your hard work 😛 (as long as you don't mind, of course).

[progfolio]

Please do. Whatever I end up with will be under GPL3. The more ideas the better. I will keep an eye on this and offer up any ideas that come to mind.

[tecosaur]

Hi @progfolio — for your interest, I’ve recently started looking at this, kicking off with a quick s/sdcv/lexic/. From here I’m going to try to abstract the method used into a generalised backend definition.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get this to a state where I’m happy to push in a week or two — unfortunately I seem to have developed a number of tasks competeing for my attention.

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed the little status update :P