1. A computer program product for generating a code alphabet for use by a deployed program to determine codewords for words used in a computing system, wherein the codewords have an average codeword length less than a length of the words, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to perform operations, the operations comprising: generating a code alphabet having a number of symbols formed by merging symbols that provide variable length codings of the words, wherein the code alphabet is used by the deployed program.