JavaScript

Dictionary Lookup Chrome Extension

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Things are a little slow today and I was tired of not having some type of plug-in for looking up the definition of words while reading so I decided to cook up my own real quick.

 

Give it a shot:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/eeepadhockifhkeglihhapjdhkcpcfal

PS: You might have to install a beta version of chrome first.

 

It’s pretty basic, you just select some text in the browser and a little book icon shows up in the address bar. If you click it, it will open a new tab for you at dictionary.com with the selected text already searched for. Nice and simple.

 

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While it didn’t take long to do it, I have to admit doing the whole thing in javascript was a less than savory experience. I think I’m spoiled by my static languages.

OMeta

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If you haven’t heard of it check this out:

http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa/

I was just reading his Ph.D. dissertation linked on that page and this quote is really jumping out at me:

OMeta’s key insight is the realization that all of the passes in a traditional compiler are essentially pattern matching operations:
• a lexical analyzer finds patterns in a stream of characters to produce a stream of tokens;
• a parser matches a stream of tokens against a grammar (which itself is a collection of productions, or patterns) to produce abstract syntax trees (ASTs);
• a typechecker pattern-matches on ASTs to produce ASTs annotated with types;
• more generally, visitors pattern-match on ASTs to produce other ASTs;
• finally, a (naive) code generator pattern-matches on ASTs to produce code.

He is so right. It seems that pattern matching might be the other side of the coin of Transformation. Great stuff.