I stumbled upon the really neat idea of converting integers into memorable sentences on the Asana blog. The crux of the problem is that when giving a user a random number, it is likely that they will get it wrong, or it will be annoying to repeat each of the numbers to a customer service representative. So, instead of providing them with a number, how about providing them with a sentence instead? For example, the following numbers and sentences are "equivalent" to each other:
2474137653 == 20 exultant leopards strode intensely
1934320125 == 16 excited platypuses babbled wearily
4225612387 == 33 flippant snakes traveled sadly
I won't go into the details of how it works, as it is covered in detail in the original blog post and the code below, but I thought I'd share my implementation of the idea.
The original work uses 32 bit integers, and I implemented it pretty much as it was described. However, in order to allow for the potential extension of this approach to other types of numbers (shorts, longs, etc.) I created a base class that does all of the "heavy lifting" followed by a subclass that merely provides it with the necessary bits of information to make it work. So, if you felt like it, you can create longer sentences for longs, or use fewer words for shorts, etc.
And before you wonder where you can get the code, it's available as a gist and for your viewing pleasure is included here.
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