On Thu, 4 May 2000, Matt Sergeant wrote:
> On Thu, 4 May 2000, Stas Bekman wrote:
>
> > > Yes. On some of the search engines (AltaVista springs to mind) you can
> > > search for things on particular web sites, or even links to particular web
> > > sites. So as long as AltaVista keeps its search contents up to date, you
> > > can leverage their engine. IIRC either Randall or Lincoln did a
> > > WebTechniques article about this a few months ago.
> >
> > Oh, I see.
> >
> > But I want to stress these 2 points:
> >
> > 1) Currently each chapter in the Guide is a huge document, so doing search
> > and having a hit, doesn't really help as you still have to go thru the
> > page to find the exact section that you want to read. So I think we want a
> > search engine that's not working with the master version per se, but with
> > a copy which has name anchors for each line and:
> >
> > a. can bring you to exact line with match
> > b. have the keyword highlighted
> >
> > 2) Most of the search engines have problems with keywords including
> > non-alpha chars, like if you search for Apache::Registry you will end up
> > searching for Apache and Registry since :: is ignored. Now think about
> > '$r->print' 'BEGIN {', '$@', etc. All these are must for the doc with many
> > non-alpha characters which should be searched for.
> >
> > What do you think?
>
> You seem to have it all worked out. I look forward to seeing your search
> engine ;-)
>
> Seriously though, I have a search engine in the works, however I don't
> know how well it will apply to your scheme above. It looks like you're
> going to be better off writing one yourself. Its not too hard, provided
> you have a DB to store the index on. Let me know if you need some
> pointers.
Two things:
1) I'd better concentrate on improving the content and structure of the
Guide and will leave this search engine task to someone who needs to use
the Guide but find it unusable without the proper search engine.
2) perl.apache.org doesn't have mod_perl installed, so it's better to use
some other site. I don't have any.
Which leads to: If you suffer from inability to get the best out of the
Guide in the shortest time and wish to help others in the same boat,
please create a searchable mirror site which answers on the above demands.
You will get a monument while you are alive at the perl.apache.org site if
you are looking for one, but of course the most important is a great
feeling of giving something back and not just taking.
Hmm, may be we should run another contest at the Perl conference. The name
is 'find it in the Guide'. You will be given a number of unanswered posts
from the mod_perl list and the first one that provides pointers in the
Guide that solve these problems wins. This has a double effect:
1) You get the prize
2) You finally answer the unanswered questions :)
Have a good day, folks!
______________________________________________________________________
Stas Bekman | JAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker
http://stason.org/ | mod_perl Guide http://perl.apache.org/guide
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://perl.org http://stason.org/TULARC/
http://singlesheaven.com| http://perlmonth.com http://sourcegarden.org
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