Re: dict - Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Jean Louis]

* Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> [2020-10-03 05:56]:
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> 
>   > The client in Emacs, such as dictionary.el should first look for
>   > localhost, and if that is not available, few servers could be set as
>   > fallback.
> 
> That would do the right job, but in a kludgy way.  It ought to
> be able to read local files without the kludge of talking
> to the same machine over the net.

Yes and no.

Emacs can be and will be installed on various systems, various
devices, not every device has the capacity to hold dictionaries, and
not every operating system will even have such dictionaries
included. Many dictionaries like Wiktionary and Wikipedia that can be
served through same system are of large size, not everybody has the
ability to hold large files on their systems.

Debian GNU/Linux and probably PureOS as fully free operating
system have large list of various dictionaries.

Imagine a classroom of pupils with 5 computers, not on each computer
to be dictionary, they can have one server serving dictionary to
others.

Imagine library with 20 private notebook users, they can connect to
library server and access dictionary definitions.