On 12/21/2015 08:40 PM, Micky wrote:
The summer after my first year in college, I worked at the US Army
Finance Center** in Indianapolis. This is not what wikip or google
says but what they told me there was that Soundex was invented by a
guy who worked there. Since he invented it partly, largely, entirely
on government time, or in accordance with his employment contract, he
offered it to the army but they didnt' want it. I'm not sure if they
gave up their rights for no money or what. But then he pursued it
and ended up selling it back to the army for mucho money, enough that
he was rich.

It's been around a long time but there have been a lot of new improved
versions. I've used it for address validation and it works fairly well
for police dispatchers who can't spell. It can get weird though. BEACH,
BEECH, BIRCH are okay but sometimes the encoding gives you unexpected
candidates. Explainable, but still unexpected.