I think "Proof of concept" means different things to different people. I am sorry I ever used those words, aside from the possible benefit of getting people a little "fired up" which may perpetuate some needed changes. It is more fairly, something like beta.
I don't take anything anyone says on a mailing list comcerning my opinions personally (say something about my mama, maybe a different story :) ). I just want to see nutch get more users, and that goal requires those with the knowledge to answer the questions and make sure nutch is relatively easy to use. I also want to see nutch: Scale to the entire web, and have State-of-the-art search quality I think those 2 goals require better tactics than PDFBox stripper.gettext(); I will take on the challenge myself and glady share the developments back with the community. Anyone interested in joining in can contact me and their contributions will be welcome. I do think putting FAQs and tutorials on the Wikie, is much better than having to go on an easter egg hunt through the mailing list archives, which is how I solved many of my problems. It was only when I couldn't make sense of what I read that I posted a question. I would also be happy to edit Stephan's wiki for english grammar as he indicated his english was "terrible", which may be a little overstated. That's the least I can do for the help he has given me so far. -----Original Message----- From: David Wallace [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 5:39 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: project vitality? Hello all, I think Nutch is a fantastic product. I used 0.6 initially, then 0.7. My 0.7 installation is in production, and mostly works really well. I haven't made the move to 0.8 yet, because the direction that Nutch has gone for 0.8 is quite different from what my organisation requires from its search engine. I owe Doug and the team a huge thank-you for all the effort they've put into Nutch. Well done. However, it's a sad day when someone like Richard Braman gets shot down in flames for making some fair and valid criticisms of the Nutch project. Apart from his statement about Nutch being in "proof of concept" stage, I agree with everything Richard has said. The documentation DOES leave a fair bit to be desired. The initial learning curve CAN be precipitous. It's easy to get confused with all the various settings in the XML configuration files and the various plug-ins. I can understand that he doesn't feel that he's in a position to contribute to the documentation base, because he doesn't know all the answers yet. I think moving everything, including the tutorial, to the Wiki is a fine idea; provided that we encourage new users to comment on what did and didn't work for them. I think we'll find there's a lot of common ground among their comments. Long-term readers of the nutch-user mailing list know that many newbies ask the same questions. Also, I've lost count of the number of times someone has posted something to the effect of "I'll pay someone to give me Nutch support", simply because they find the existing documentation and mailing lists inadequate. Usually, that person gets told that the best way to get Nutch support is to ask questions on the mailing list; but since questions often go unanswered, this isn't a very good way to get Nutch support at all. All of this is acceptable in a product that hasn't yet reached "version 1.0". The code has moved ahead faster than the documentation; and that's fine, provided the documentation will eventually catch up. Maybe, once 0.8 is deemed production-worthy, the team should down tools, stop coding, and put some effort into really producing a really lovely set of documentation, including a comprehensive FAQ. I believe that this will help grow the user base, faster than adding new features ever could. So in summary, well done to the Nutch team for this great product. Well done to Richard Braman for pointing out what could be done. And let's all not flame people whose opinions differ from our own. David. ************************************************************************ ******** This email may contain legally privileged information and is intended only for the addressee. It is not necessarily the official view or communication of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, copy or distribute this email or information in it. If you have received this email in error, please contact the sender immediately. NZQA does not accept any liability for changes made to this email or attachments after sending by NZQA. All emails have been scanned for viruses and content by MailMarshal. NZQA reserves the right to monitor all email communications through its network. ************************************************************************ ********
