computer science

Komputeko

Komputeko is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Komputeko rather than just read about it. In short: Komputeko is an online project of the non-profit youth organization E@I (“Education@Internet”) with the goal of bringing together parallel computer terminology from various dictionaries in order to facilitate access to and comparison between different translations and thus promote exact use of language and counteract the (often sloppy) usage of linguistic borrowings from American English. Komputeko is short for the…

Key takeaways

Komputeko belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Komputeko to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Komputeko from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Komputeko is an online project of the non-profit youth organization E@I (“Education@Internet”) with the goal of bringing together parallel computer terminology from various dictionaries in order to facilitate access to and comparison between different translations and thus promote exact use of language and counteract the (often sloppy) usage of linguistic borrowings from American English. Komputeko is short for the Esperanto noun phrase "Prikomputila terminokolekto", meaning "collection of computer terms". The dictionary is written in five languages (Esperanto, English, Dutch, German and French), and there are plans to expand it into other languages. A preliminary version with a few other languages already exists.

Development of Komputeko The Esperanto dictionaries and word lists on which Komputeko is based are the Komputada Leksikono ("Computing Lexicon") by Sergio Pokrovskij (Сергей Покровский), the crowd-sourced Reta Vortaro ("Internet Dictionary", ReVo, the Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto ("Complete Illustrated Dictionary of Esperanto", PIV), the Internet mini-dictionary of the Flandra Esperanto-Ligo, the Techniczny Słownik Polsko Esperancki ("Polish-Esperanto Technical Dictionary") by Jerzy Wałaszek, the three-volume Pekoteko collection of terminology, Bill Walker's Komputilo Vortolisto and a Dutch-Esperanto dictionary. It also takes into account the terminology used in articles from the Esperanto Wikipedia. The promoter of the project, Yves Nevelsteen, among other things, joined the Esperanto translation team for the open-source productivity suite OpenOffice.org, the social networking site Ipernity and the content management system Drupal in order to make these teams' work product more widely available through Komputeko.

Usage of Komputeko Among scholars who have acknowledged the utility of the Komputeko project are John C. Wells, who authored both the Teach Yourself Books' Concise Esperanto and English Dictionary (1969) and the concise yet comprehensive English-Esperanto-English Dictionary (Mondial, 2010), and Paul Peeraerts, who translated the interface of Ipernity and Facebook into Esperanto and who has served as editorial secretary of the Esperanto-language monthly Monato. Others who have availed themselves of Komputeko include Cindy McKee's KDE and Joomla translation teams, Esperanto Wikipedia founder Chuck Smith's Drupal translation and the former Amikumu projects, Tim Morley's OpenOffice.org translation team, Guillaume Savaton's GNOME translation team, the translation teams for Plone and Xfce, and Joop Kiefte's Ubuntu translation team.

Book versions of Komputeko 2008: Yves Nevelsteen, Komputeko (1st edition). Published by Espero, Partizánske, Slovakia. 92 pages. ISBN 978-80-969533-9-4 This version benefited from the linguistic advice of Cindy McKee and Bertilo Wennergren, while Mauro La Torre (1946–2010), Paul Peeraerts and Lode Van de Velde served as proofreaders. 2012: Yves Nevelsteen, Komputeko (2nd edition). Published by Espero, Partizánske, Slovakia. 124 pages. ISBN 978-80-89366-14-9 Edmund Grimley Evans's extensive annotations on the first edition helped improve the second edition, for which the chief proofreader was Marek Blahuš. The new edition, which has 7,800 headwords and incorporated over 500 additions and modifications from the previous edition, coincided with a major update to the online project's website.

References

External links Komputeko, searchable English interface to the online version Komputeko, searchable Esperanto interface, along with Esperanto-language information on the project Sergio Pokrovskij, Extensive review of Komputeko, 2008 edition (text in Esperanto), from La Ondo de Esperanto, October 2009, (issue 180)

Illustrations

Komputeko: Cover of the Komputeko book, edition 2008 — Cover of the Komputeko book, edition 2008

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Komputeko

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Komputeko claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Komputeko before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Komputeko ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Komputeko

In research: Komputeko appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Komputeko in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Komputeko is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computing terminology, Creative Commons-licensed websites, Esperanto dictionaries, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Komputeko outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Komputeko in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Komputeko means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Komputeko out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Komputeko in simple terms?

Why does Komputeko matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Komputeko?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Komputeko.