Re: Inverted index to accelerate guix package search

[Pierre Neidhardt]

Arun Isaac <address@hidden> writes:

> I feel xapian is too much work (considering that we don't yet have guile
> bindings) compared to our own simple implementation of an inverted
> index. But, of course, I am biased since I wrote the inverted index
> code! :-)

Indeed, xapian bindings would be the biggest obstacle.

> But, on a more serious note, if we move to xapian, we will not be able
> to support regular expression based search queries that we support
> today.

We can always keep our current regexp search (which is trivial) for
those who really want it.  I believe that Xapian is much more usable
than regexps on a daily basis.

> On the other hand, I can extend the inverted index implementation
> to support regular expression searches. Personally, I don't use regular
> expression based search queries, and don't think they are very useful
> especially if we make use of xapian's stemming. What do people think?

Agreed!

I see this with my emails (Notmuch): I type whatever words I remember
and whoever names was involved in a thread and I systematically find
it.  I've used it for months and it never missed! :)

> On the question of whether xapian is too heavy, I think we should make
> it an optional dependency of Guix so that it remains possible to build
> and use a more minimalistic Guix for those interested in such things.

I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to make it optional.  That said, with
this little overhead and this much benefit, it seems to be a very nice
default at first glance.

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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