Saturday, June 7, 2008

Chinese Course - Finally, the Pinyin tool you've all been waiting for. - Page 13 - From Beijing Chinese School.com > Learning Chinese > Chinese Computing and Technology

Finally, the Pinyin tool you've all been waiting for.
Home New Posts

Login:    Pass:   Log in or register for standard view and full access.

Page 13 of 13 First < 31112 13

imron -

Quote:

Do you think if I gave an incentive to do it like 500 or 1,000 yuan, would people be more
interested in doing it?

Haha, well, if I think about how much I can earn per hour as a programmer, multiplied by the
number of hours it would take to complete such a project, then my answer is still no For
comparison, pinyinput (which was a relatively small and simple project), only took about 200 hours
including research, design, development and testing. Back then, I also had both the time and the
desire to write such a program.

Pleco Software Learn Chinese with our Dictionaries for Palm and Pocket PC.
Learn Chinese in China Learn to speak Chinese 1MonthChinese.com -Mandarin School in China.
Chinese Textbooks Wide range, cheap, varied languages. Also Chinese cartoons, toys, gifts.
Study Chinese in Beijing Affordable Mandarin language courses at BLCU with ChinaUnipath.com.
HNHSoft Dictionary Learn Chinese on Smartphone and PDA with real person's voice.
XueXueXue IQChinese Get beyond the plateau.Take your Mandarin to a new level.
Chinese in Lijiang Short term Chinese study in a beautiful town with a focus on daily life.
MandarinTube Chinese Access to current everyday Chinese language and culture, 24/7.
Learn Chinese Homestay Chinese course, cultural activities & volunteer events in China.
Learn Chinese Online 1-on-1 instant tutoring, diverse courses, native teachers. FREE trial now!
Nihao Chinese Progam Free one-on-one Chinese lesson. Win 5-years of free lessons now!

About Ads (and how to hide them) -- Your message here

muyongshi -

Quote:

Back then, I also had both the time and the desire to write such a program.

As opposed to now where you only have the time but not the desire

roddy -

200 hours is a lot of time. Was there nothing on telly? You should have said, I'd have lent you
some HBO.

I hadn't imagined it would take that long - all the more kudos for making it available to us all.

imron -

Quote:

As opposed to now where you only have the time but not the desire

Well I don't have the time now either (have you noticed how long its been between updates?)

Quote:

I hadn't imagined it would take that long

Haha, well then you'd be like most people (programmers included) when they estimate how long it
takes to write a piece of software. Actually, if you only talk about actual coding time for
Pinyinput, then it would have been about half that. The 200 hours also includes time hunting
around for, and reading the appropriate API documentation, time spent making little test programs
to get a better understanding of APIs (which are poorly documented), time spent in Photoshop
making the icons etc etc. It's the little things like these that people's brains tend to gloss
over when doing estimates that together all add up to a significant amount of time.

I'm sure there was stuff on telly, but not having an easy and consistent way to type pinyin was
something that had been bugging me for ages - not that I even write in Pinyin much at all, but
it's just for those few occasions, it really bugged me to have to open up a web browser, or some
other program just to get the tones.

SWWLiu -

Hi imrom and Roddy:

I just joined this forum a few days ago. I came to it through a Google search on "Structure of
Chinese Characters" and have been fascinated with many of the postings. I read all the threads to
Pinyinput IME today. Thank you, Roddy, for starting the forum -- and, imron, for being Admin and
for writing Pinyinput. I used to do a lot of bilingual word processing before the onset of
Unicode, which wiped out all my old "double byte" Chinese word processing systems. I am gingerly
getting back into it, under Unicode. I know several Chinese transliteration systems. I also know
MS Office Suite very well (including the underlying VBA) and will want to try your Pinyinput soon,
imron. I'm primarily a math/science editor and applications programmer (among other things). I try
to stay away from the API's and IME's as much as possible, but for Pinyinput, I might just cross
the line, imron. Wish me luck -- my laptop runs on Windows XP and I don't have a lot of free space
left on my hard drive.

By the way, what's the difference between "Unicode", "Unicode endian", and "UFT-8"? Where can I
find out?

imron -

Quote:

my laptop runs on Windows XP and I don't have a lot of free space left on my hard drive.

Not to worry, Pinyinput is quite small, and takes up next to no room on your hard disk (~160kb)

Regarding Unicode and the different encoding schemes, endianess and other things, here is a good
place to start.

Tinov -

Hi all,

Pinyinput is great, but would it run on the linux version of the Asus Eee PC? If not, is there
anyone out there looking to make a version that will?

Thanks

Tinov.

imron -

Sorry, Pinyinput is currently Windows only.

crazy-meiguoren -

Quote:

By using Unicode's combining diacritic marks, it even supports tone marks over consonants, s̄ò
ȳǒù c̀áň w̌řītě āll s̀ōřts̄ ōf čŕāžy̌ s̄tǔff lǐǩě thǐs

A mǒǒse once bit my sister.

OK, I know it's not the "O" with the slash through it, but I'd thought I have a bit of fun with
some subtitles from a Monty Python movie...

All times are GMT +8. The time now is 04:58 PM.

Learn Chinese, Chinese Course, Learn mandarin, Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About chinese characters, News in Chinese, Go to China, Travel to China, Study in China, Teach in China, Dictionaries, Learn Chinese Painting, Your name in Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese songs, Chinese proverbs, Chinese poetry, Chinese tattoo, Beijing 2008 Olympics, Mandarin Phrasebook, Chinese editor, Pinyin editor, China Travel, Travel to Beijing

No comments: