[REBOL] Re: Rebol and a new compression system.
From: reboler::programmer::net at: 5-Mar-2002 10:20
Terry,
Sounds great! Would have many uses where text is the medium (html, REBOL scripts, e-mail,
etc).
However, I will remain politely skeptical until I see it in action.
While I don't have much experience with the mechanics of compression, I have read some
about it.
And from that I am heartened by your description of giving better compression for a specific
type of file ("This works only for communication using standard english words...").
_A_Lot_ of work has been done in this area, and _many_ claims of a better system have
been proven false. But, many compression schemes are tuned for _any_ type of file (standard
zip , PKZIP WinZip etc), so claims for a better system for a specific type of file are
plausible.
I am openly skeptical about your (implied) claim that you can greatly compress an already
compressed file ("If a better compression system than winzip is used, then the 213 would
be even smaller."). While not impossible, I would like to see if it is a general phenomenon
for any English text file.
Can it be tuned for REBOL scripts?
I've been toying with using huffman-encoding (thanks RebolForces!) on the level of words
instead of characters. Is this similar to your scheme?
