| |
BGonline.org Forums
Computer-friendly nactation methodology for variant/family symbols
Posted By: Nack Ballard In Response To: Computer-friendly nactation methodology for variant/family symbols (Matt Ryder)
Date: Friday, 4 February 2011, at 7:33 a.m.
While my priority is finishing and releasing the Nactation tutorial update, I appreciate your continued exploration into the idea of computer-generated Nactation.
I assume that you played through the Annactated Game, so that you have an idea how seldom hierarchy is needed on a practical level. Even terribly played backgammon resorts to hierarchy less often than some people seem to realize.
Some (not all) complex doublets do require underlining, by design. But this is only a subset of the 1/6 of the time that doublets are rolled (and even those instances can be handled by assumption). Your "99%" comment shows that you're aware of this, so most of the comments so far are for the benefit/information of others.
You rightfully reject assumption (a very useful human technique) as a resource for computers. Nevertheless, more than one letter family can generally be applied (e.g., opening 31P = 31A). At the least, the computer should check all available capitals, then lower cases, etc., to find the highest hierarchal character. For example, in some post you mentioned 21S-11 played Bar/23 6/5(3), but even if someone were to make such an unusual play, E is unnecessary; "f" is unambiguous.
You are understandably concerned about modes of translation. The biggest problem I encounter is file names, though rollout files are for early game sequences, where we don't reach the unlikely post-hit containment blot-spray doublets moves. That minimizes the amount of irregular letters that arise.
It seems to me that there are trivial solutions to some of the problems you mentioned. For example, in hand transcriptions (though we're talking rare instances), italics can be written at 45 to 90 degree angles, and bold is the letter written offset over itself -- obvious to a scanner. Or say you want to convert a computer-input match and post it on the forum: the computer can add the html tags for you.
I'll concede you can't do everything. But if you believe it is prudent to limit computers to capital/lower-case and one character isn't always enough, I think you can do a lot better than a binary system. By just adding ONE extra character to H or h, you can generate well over a hundred additional H-family members. One such scheme, using only numerals and the first ten letters of the alphabet that generates an easy 60 members is
H, h, H3, H4, H5, H6, H7, H8, H9, H0, HA, HB, HC...HJ,
Ha, Hb, Hc...Hj, h1, h2, h3... hA, hB, hC..., ha, hb, hc...The U/V family creates no problem. In fact, adding one character with the same simple schcme generates 120 members (twice as many as above). You just rotate through U, V, u, v, in the same way that you rotate through H, h.
Hope that helps,
Nack
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.