Re: [9fans] Re: ctrans - Chinese language input for Plan9

["Silvan Jegen" <me@sillymon.ch>]

Heyhey!

Sebastian Higgins <bctnry@outlook.com> wrote:
> A few things:
> 
> 1.  Cangjie is still widely used in places that uses traditional
> Chinese characters. You would still be required to be good at it if
> you apply for text-heavy office jobs in these places.

Ah, I didn't know that! I also don't know anyone who does office work
in a place where traditional Chinese characters are used though ...


> 2.  Radical-based/shape-based methods were extremely popular when
> the prediction technology wasn't as good (which means Pinyin was
> significantly slower). It wasn't until late 2000s to early 2010s
> before this situation has changed.

At least in Japan I have never met anyone using a
radical-based/shape-based input method. I have not even met anyone using
direct Kana input, only through romaji. That said, may be an earlier
generation used it more commonly ...


> 3.  Pinyin without prediction is slow because of what we called the
> 重码 (lit. "overlap of encoding") problem. For Pinyin the encoding
> overlaps because many characters may have the same Pinyin; the purpose
> of all shape-based method is to reduce the overlap problem and thus
> increase the input speed.

Yeah, it's due to the high homophones count. Only the tones differ and
these are not supported in pinyin input methods (as far as I know ...)


> 4. ctrans uses cangjie because (1) implementing shape-based methods
> was much, much more simpler than phonetic-based methods because most
> (if not all) of the job is table lookup; (2) if we were to use the
> same UI (or lack thereof) as ktrans the overlap-of-encoding problem
> of Pinyin would very probably drive you nuts when using it; (3) it is
> the input method the author uses, however I do admit using Cangjie for
> simplified Chinese input is kinda peculiar.
> 
> Source: me who is a native Chinese speaker and have learned Wubi
> (a shape-based method for simplified Chinese) in primary school.

Thanks for the insights. I appreciate it!


Cheers,
Silvan

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