Tatu, My comments were not intended to be directed specifically toward you. And I don't think you worded your reply badly.
<soapbox> Rather, it is my general observation, after participating in this list for a year and a half, that there seems to be a consistently big gap between Lucene newbies and "old hands". Bridging that gap isn't simply a matter of RTFM, because the available "manual" just scratches the surface of what can be done. It is my experience that you have to become immersed in the details quite a bit before important aspects become evident. Some will say that's OK, because everyone is expected to "do their own homework." I would agree, if there was sufficient material available to study. But simply because Lucene is so powerful and capable and (IMHO) cutting edge, people could use a bit more help not only in getting started, but in tapping some of its more refined capabilities. </soapbox> Regards, Terry PS: If there is general interest in doing some documentation enhancement, I'd be happy to participate/contribute. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tatu Saloranta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lucene Users List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 12:09 AM Subject: Re: Keyword search with space and wildcard > On Friday 29 August 2003 10:02, Terry Steichen wrote: > > I agree. One problem, however, that new (and not-so-new) Lucene users face > > is a learning curve when they want to get past the simplest and most > > obvious uses of Lucene. For example, I don't think any of the docs mention > > the fact that you can't combine a phrase and a wildcard query. Other > > things that are obviously quite well understood by many members of the > > list, are still less-than-clear to others. For example, I found (and still > > find) it a bit difficult to find concrete examples/advice of how to get > > good benefit from filters. > > > > My whole point is that this is a *very* powerful and flexible technology. > > But I think it's often very difficult for those most experienced in using > > Lucene to fully appreciate how it looks from the "newbie" point of view. > > I agree completely. Perhaps I worded my reply badly; I didn't mean to sound > hostile towards new users at all -- after all I consider myself to be one (I > just happened to work on simple improvements to QueryParser and learnt how it > works). I wish documentation was more complete; perhaps some section could > list common workarounds or insights. And perhaps incompatibility of phrase > and wild card queries could be added to document that lists current > limitations. > > I guess the reason I think it's valuable to document the flexibility of query > construction is that I have been working on something similar (although > working with database queries) in a system I'm working on, and I have also > seen systems that have query syntax that's too intertwined with backend > implementation (for example, while Hibernate is a good ORM, its queries don't > seem to have backend independent intermediate representation... which makes > it hard to develop different kinds of backends). So, it's useful to know that > there are 2 levels of interfaces to Lucene's query functionality. > > -+ Tatu +- > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
