Talk:Shannon–Fano coding
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http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/shannonFano.html has a paragraph identical to p2 of this article.
Either http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/shannonFano.html copied this, and failed to cite Wikipedia as a source, or this article copied from http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/shannonFano.html (which probably is not fair use, as it is not quoted). Or the author is the same in both cases.
It was probably copied from there... Evil saltine 15:07, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Especially as the Wikipedia description of Shannon-Fano coding is entirely incorrect. I'm going to correct it; it will be my first major contribution to the 'pedia... Antaeus Feldspar, 10:26 EST Jan 16 2004
Should the text "although according to this author it bloody well should be" be part of the article? It shows one person's bias for or against a particular idea, which really doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.
Towards the end of the article, it said:-
... However, arithmetic coding has not obsoleted Huffman the way that Huffman obsoletes Shannon-Fano, both because arithmetic coding is more computationally expensive and because it is covered by multiple patents. However, range encoding is equally efficient, and is not plagued by patent issues.
(Emphasis mine.) I've deleted that last line, as this rumour that range coding is free from arithmetic coding related patents does seem quite dubious. This is because range coding and arithmetic coding are actually the same thing. They're just different interpretations, different ways of understanding, the same thing. The claim about range coding being free from arithmetic coding patents therefore seems likely to be ill-founded, though it does seem to be quite a persistent rumour.
I came across this article in relation to related changes I've made to the arithmetic coding and range encoding articles, which I've similarly edited to correct (or at least clarify) the relationship between arithmetic and range coding.
--Simon G Best 19:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] main article needs a chronology
When, exactly, did the Shannon-Fano coding come to be called that, and not something else? Are there any months and dates that can be assigned to the discovery of the Shannon-Fano coding scheme? If the discovery cannot itself be dated, when was the Shannon-Fano coding scheme first published in hardcopy form? If it was never published in hardcopy form, when was it first disseminated electronically?
- Done Calbaer 14:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
