Reboot the reboot: Le P'tit Aurèle (lexicon of the French-Acadian language)

#21

(TiddlyWiki project)

For “Phonology and Spelling” attributes, I’ve added an “Old” checkbox for the “Standard French” spelling and punctuation.

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For any Acadian word that is a spelling variant (because of phonetic mutation) of a Standard French word, I’ll enter the Standard French spelling and pronunciation.

Because the Standard French words are also spoken in Acadie, I include such words in the dictionary.

However, some Acadian words are based on “Old French” words that are not used today. I don’t want those words listed in my dictionary, so the checkbox flags a word for exclusion.

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#22

I’m finding myself again dissatisfied with the “fly-by-the-seat-o’-me-pants” data architecture I’ve wound up with.

Although “reboot cycles” can be frustrating, there is nothing like entering content in working prototypes to really get a good grasp of the data domain.

So I decided to take a break from the “I.T.” hat I was wearing, and took some time to read about the Acadian French language (let the “I.T.” hamster in the far recesses of my sponge handle problem-solving; i.e., let the subconscious mind do the heavy lifting.)

Now, I’m reading a French grammar book as I create a map (an “entity-relationship” diagram) of what I need to setup in my TiddlyWiki.

entity relationship diagram
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#23

ARG!

When one is used to working with (what is to me) the Cadillac of modelling tools throughout one’s career, the “free” modelling tools are brutally painful.

The “Entity-Relationship” modelling features in the free software I’m using is not allowing me to model things in a way I like, so I’ve decided to try the “Class” modelling feature to see if that is enough to satisfy me.

That previous entity relationship diagram changed to a class diagram (work in progress):

class diagram
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#24

Enough of using the wrong tools for the job. I finally broke and got (for me) the “Cadillac” modeling tool.

Although I’m a career software developer for Windows, I’ve been a Chromebooks-only household for just a hair over ten years now. Until yesterday.

I drove to the store, picked up a middling-spec Windows 11 lappy, brought it home, and promptly installed the 30-day trial of Sparx Enterprise Architect (a sweet gem from Australia.)

I cringe using Windows on my personal time. Totally worth it for this one software product.

Having not used the software since 2019, and the last version I used was already 5 years (or more) out of date, I’ve got a wee bit of a re-acquaintance stretch ahead of me.

Once I get my mind wrapped around the very different interface and all of the new features, I hope to get back to “rigorously” modelling Le P’tit Aurèle again, and eventually share the result here.

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#25

Yup, working with the right tool for the job is right Zen.

Words:

I am taking my jolly time, simultaneously reviewing a French grammar book, rediscovering this modeling software, getting used to Windows 11, and figuring out how to leverage my experience with UML to repurpose class diagrams for visualizing the design of my TW.

The “Word” class shows the fundamental things I want to store about words (things that are common to all classes of words, all of those word classes listed in the notes on the far-right of the diagram.)

Of the word classes, and for the near future, only “Gendered Words” have some additional attributes.

Some things will be kept in fields, some things will be tags.

In general, anything that involves free-flow typing of text in an edit widget goes in a field. Anything that might involve a checkbox widget will be a tag.

#26

Word “families”

A word is associated with at least one word family (if one wants to add details beyond the “base” attributes of a word.)

A word family is associated with one or more words that together have some common thread of details.

For example: “acadien” and “acadienne”. These two words belong to a family related to the purpose of those words as adjectives. These two words also belong to a family related to the purpose of those words as nouns.

A family of words, for the purpose of that family, might have one or more meanings. For each meaning, there might be one or more examples of those words in sentences. Something like that. Things for the next models.

Who knows what other types of word families I’ll need as I truck along. Maybe families of words related to kitchen items, or farm animals. Maybe a family of words that are the conjugations for a verb.

Note that the title for word family tiddlers will be generated sequence numbers. That’s enough to uniquely identify word family tiddlers