Re: please proofread the description of the (new) zinnia package

[LI Daobing <lidaobing@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 14:05, Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk> wrote:
> LI Daobing wrote:
>> please proofread the description of the (new) zinnia package
>
> You left out the short description, but here it is
> ("http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=514969";):
> # * Package name    : zinnia
> #   Version         : 0.02
> #   Upstream Author : Taku Kudo <taku@chasen.org>
> # * URL             : http://zinnia.sourceforge.net/
> # * License         : BSD
> #   Programming Lang: C++ (with Python, Perl, Ruby binding, with swig)
> #   Description     : Online hand recognition system with machine learning
>
> Well, one really minor issue is that "Online" shouldn't be
> capitalised there; short descriptions aren't sentences.
>
> But the big problem is, when you say "hand recognition" I'm pretty
> sure you mean "handwriting recognition".  Even calling it that isn't
> unambiguous, since it might mean recognising an individual's
> handwriting style (as an authentication mechanism).  Assuming that's
> not the idea, make it clear in the long description - instead of
> repeating the phrase "online hand(writing) recognition", call it a
> "dynamic OCR system for hand-written input" (or whatever's
> accurate).
>
>>  Zinnia is a simple, customizable and portable online hand recognition
>>  system based on Support Vector Machines. Zinnia simply receives user pen
>>  strokes as a sequence of coordinate data and outputs n-best characters
>
> I'm not sure you can have a sequence of data - sequences have to be
> composed of plural things, and data is uncountable in English.  Just
> drop "a sequence of".
>
> Assuming that isn't some esoteric piece of SVM jargon, it should be
> "the n best" (or "best matching") characters - like "the ten best",
> not like "n-dimensional".  Or, arguably, just leave the n out, since
> it doesn't add any information.
>
>>  sorted by SVM confidence. To keep portability, Zinnia doesn't have any
>
> "Keep" isn't bad, but I'd prefer "maintain", or maybe "ensure"; and
> say "has no" instead of "doesn't have any".  I can't say why.
>
>>  rendering functionality. In addition to recognition, Zinnia provides
>>  training module that allows us to create any hand-written recognition
>>  systems with low-cost.
>
>  * Provides ^a^ training module.
>  * Does "us" mean users in general?
>  * Does "any" mean "nonzero" or "arbitrarily selected"?
>  * "Handwriting recognition".
>  * Presumably the low "cost" is in terms of computational resources?
>  * Which is it that's low-cost - creating the system or running it?
>
> Making a couple of guesses, I'd suggest rewriting it as
>
>  Description: online handwriting recognition system with machine learning
>  This package provides a simple, customizable, and portable dynamic OCR
>  system for hand-written input, based on Support Vector Machines.
>  Zinnia simply receives user pen strokes as coordinate data and outputs
>  the best matching characters sorted by SVM confidence. To maintain
>  portability, it has no rendering functionality. In addition to
>  recognition, Zinnia provides a training module capable of creating
>  highly efficient handwriting recognition models.
>

Thanks.

I think I need buy a English grammar book, :-)


-- 
Best Regards
LI Daobing