[kde-edu]: Parley (KVocTrain) Expiring

[Roland Schnell]

Hi all,


just some short information about my background:

 I'm reading this list for several weeks because I'm interestet in
 KVocTrain and I've missed the .dtd-file (This question is already
 answered for the moment. I just enjoyed reading this list, so I
 stayed.) I'm using this program for at least four years (for
 learning lithuanian) and I'm using KDE as my primary desktop since
 1999.
 I've got nearly no idea about programming in C or even with qt
 and I've _never_ tried to understand more than some _easy_
 configuration scripts. So I think I'm a classical User. (One
 of those nasty guys who think they were clever.)


Back to the topic.

* Frederik Gladhorn:
> Hi all!
> If you used KVocTrain before, you might know (eventually) that there is 
> a "feature" called expiring.
> After discussing it for a while, we didn't have the feeling that this feature 
> is needed.

Well, I would use it, if it worked as I thought it should.
:-)
(I'm using Version 0.8.3, KDE 3.5.5, Debian etch)


> Actually we did not even find out what it is supposed to do to be honest.

I would expect it to work as a counterpart to "blocking":
(Blocking is against to many queries, expiring is against to few.)

If a word is no more blocked,
and the user doesn't proof, that he knows this word,
"expiring" comes into field:
When the time is "expired", the word will loose it's actual level.

In my opinion (I've never seen this feature work) it should drop one level.
After that,
- there should be no blocking, and
- the "expiring" of the new (lower) level should start at "dropping time".


> Looking at the code, it just ignores some threshold settings.

This made sense to me on the first few. But then I thought, it should
put up new thresholds, not ignore some old ones.
Okay, I have no idea about the code behind this program or about any
code behind such a program.
(Not, that I would have any chance to understand such code at all.)
:-)

> Unless there is real opposition or any reason to keep it, say "good bye, my 
> friend" and expiring will be gone.

Hey, calm down! :-)

In my opinion, such an option makes sense, if users are supportet which do
_not_ use KVocTrain/Parley (nice name, by the way) on a regular shedule.

I'm training my vocabulary when I've got time. There might be two weeks,
where I'm doing it every day, and than there might be half a year, where
I'm doing nothing at all.
(This doesn't make much sense, when you're looking for an effective
method for learning a language, but there's still measurable progress.)
After half a year of doing nothing, I can start with those words,
which are on the lowest level. (With other words: those, which I
either never knew, or those, which I haven't proofed to know for a
long(er) time.)
So, "expiring" makes sense for idle users like me.

> Opinions please.
> If there are none, I'll remove it on tuesday or so. Very soon anyways.

Okay, I've been in time.
I just hope I could express my point.


To put it into the right context of priorities:
I'm using KVocTrain without this feature and I'll be using it without
it in the future as well.
I would like it to be implemented, but:
If its implementation is to time consuming, or you've got enough other
things to do, drop it. I can still use "last query", as a work around.

> (with the code removal chainsaw in hand)

Oh no!
;-)


Best regards!

Roland

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