Re: Inverted index to accelerate guix package search

[zimoun]

On Wed, 15 Jan 2020 at 10:06, Pierre Neidhardt <address@hidden> wrote:

> 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.

What do you mean by trivial?

The command "guix search" supports the full Guile regexp engine, if I
remember well.


> > 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! :)

The key point here is the scoring.

Type whatever words you remember in the GNU mailing search engine.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query=load-path&submit=Search%21&idxname=guix-devel&max=20&result=normal&sort=score


All the best,
simon