atw: Try again: Darth Word versus the Son of Grammatik

Hmm, this is interesting:

Evaluating Grammar Checkers

http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/engl_126/gramchek.htm

   In 2002, Bruce Wampler, the original author of the Grammatik grammar
   checker, which is still used with WordPerfect, wrote to me to tell
   me of a discussion he had with John Markoff of the New York Times:

   "I've been in a discussion with John about how the grammar checking
   available today, 2002, is essentially no different than it was in
   1992 when I sold my company to WordPerfect and quit working on the
   code. Essentially, what has happened is that Microsoft has decided
   that its version of a grammar checker is 'good enough' and has
   stopped significant work on improvement. No one else in the world
   has the resources to build a better grammar checker.

   "Who wants to try to compete with Microsoft Word's 95% market share?

   "I'm fairly confident that if you ran your test through versions of
   Grammatik or other grammar checkers of around 1992-1994 that the
   results would be almost the same as you got with the most recent
   versions. And I'd bet you'll get the same results 5 years from now.
   Very sad."

   Indeed.

   What's more, he's right =E2=80=94 about all of it.

I liked Grammatik back in its "for DOS" days. This article
backs up my hazy impression that Grammatik circa 1990 was a
more useful guide than Word 2003 is now.

I wonder where Grammatik would be now if it had been
developed for the last 13 years as a standalone product...

Stuart Burnfield

**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to 
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts: