Throttle and Delay

A post to the graded-reader mailing list from March 23, 2008.

When you look at example-reader.html[1] you see that as well as the normal verse pairs, there are pairs marked REVIEW.

This is another idea I’m experimenting with that is independent of other ordering and display choices.

Basically, when a particular clause such as καὶ εἶπεν is introduced, I never repeat more than 3 instances of it. Instead I store up any additional instances to show later as reminders.

This “throttle-and-delay” technique is a separate part of the overall pipeline that produces the text.

The ordering algorithm, before the throttle-and-delay produces something like this:

NT.John.18_c108
NT.John.20_c122
NT.John.11_c131
NT.John.9_c174
NT.John.3_c117
NT.John.12_c121
NT.John.12_c178
NT.John.6_c97
NT.John.7_c53
NT.John.13_c95
NT.John.11_c161
NT.John.21_c114
NT.John.3_c50
NT.John.9_c25
NT.John.3_c12
NT.John.4_c71
NT.John.13_c27
NT.John.1_c206
NT.John.3_c46
NT.John.3_c4

and then the penultimate step is taking this and turning it in to the following. I’ll explain later what the various parts of the “learn” lines are (I’m adding to them all the time), but for now the thing to note is that know_S means “show this new clause they now know”, know_A means “they know this clause at this point but don’t show it yet” and know_R means “show the previously introduced clause that was delayed due to throttling”

learn καί|καί|C-|---|-----|-
learn εἶπε(ν)|λέγω|V-|AAI|3-S--|-ε(ν):sa3S
know_S NT.John.3_c117
know_S NT.John.6_c97
know_S NT.John.7_c53
know_A NT.John.9_c174
know_A NT.John.11_c131
know_A NT.John.11_c161
know_A NT.John.12_c121
know_A NT.John.12_c178
know_A NT.John.13_c95
know_A NT.John.18_c108
know_A NT.John.20_c122
know_A NT.John.21_c114
learn αὐτῷ|αὐτός|RP|---|-DSM-|-
know_S NT.John.1_c198
know_S NT.John.1_c206
know_S NT.John.3_c4
know_A NT.John.3_c12
know_A NT.John.3_c46
know_A NT.John.3_c50
know_A NT.John.4_c71
know_A NT.John.5_c54
know_A NT.John.9_c25
know_A NT.John.13_c27
know_A NT.John.14_c101
know_A NT.John.18_c142
know_A NT.John.20_c132
learn αὐτοῖς|αὐτός|RP|---|-DPM-|-
know_S NT.John.2_c64
know_S NT.John.6_c113
know_S NT.John.6_c174
know_A NT.John.7_c78
know_A NT.John.8_c24
know_A NT.John.8_c54
know_A NT.John.9_c147
know_A NT.John.13_c54
know_A NT.John.16_c78
know_R NT.John.4_c71
know_R NT.John.3_c46
know_R NT.John.5_c54

This is actually the input to the final stage that produces the HTML.

James

[1] linked from http://groups.google.com/group/graded-reader/files