From owner-freebsd-database Mon Apr 20 10:05:31 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA11827 for freebsd-database-outgoing; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:05:31 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (root@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.13]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA10873 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 17:02:23 GMT (envelope-from wosch@cs.tu-berlin.de) Received: from panke.panke.de (anonymous230.ppp.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.230]) by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA12933 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 18:55:32 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from wosch@localhost) by panke.panke.de (8.8.5/8.6.12) id SAA00849; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 18:22:59 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <19980420182258.61494@panke.de> Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 18:22:58 +0200 From: Wolfram Schneider To: shimon@simon-shapiro.org Cc: freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [PORTS] Pgaccess doesn't run on -current anymore, Update References: <19980330123130.39177@caramba.cs.tu-berlin.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.79 In-Reply-To: ; from Simon Shapiro on Mon, Mar 30, 1998 at 11:52:11AM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On 1998-03-30 11:52:11 -0800, Simon Shapiro wrote: > > That was the hardware part. You must hire a database expert, a Web > > designer and a cgi script programmer. All people should be willing to > > work for at least 2-3 years on this project. This is not an easy task. > > Using your logic, we should close the FreeBSD project, as maintaining an > Operating system like this takes 200-300 kernel experts. FreeBSD has less than 10 kernel hackers. > In other words, if the FreeBSD project cannot find the people to do this, > then noone can. BTW, your time estimate is good ig you plan to e paid > hourly for it. I nuilt much, much more complex RDBMS based information > systems in fraction of that time. An email parser is no more than a week. > The text search about the same. My point was that building a RDBMS is only 10% of the job. The rest is support, bug fixes, support, support ... It is easy to find someone to fix/extend a perl script or c program. Finding an oracle expert is difficult. > > A full update of the thread database took 6 min on hub (Pentium Pro), > > thats 100MB/min ;-) An update for the last week took 3-6 seconds. > > Something is too good to be true here. How can you read Unix filesystems > at 100 Megabytes per second? I wrote minutes, not seconds. hub.freebsd.org is a busy Web/Mail/database server. The disk output for the mailing lists files is ~1.5MByte/s. This was tested with a simple find archive -type f| time xargs cat >/dev/null > Also, if the current engine is so great, how come all these people are > excited about replacing it? I have no opinion as my usage is too scarce > and too superficial to vioce any opinion. My position is that IF there is > a desire to build an RDBMS based engine, I will be happy to contribute my > modest knowledge in the matters and some of my time. The current engine is not great ;-/ The readers of freebsd-database are not the typical serach engine users. The current usage of the thread database is very low. My impression is that the average user don't want mail threads. There are ~2000 search requests and 3000 requests to read a mail (getmsg.cgi) per day. In an early version of the thread database there where only clickable Message-ID's and In-Reply-to links. Only 2-3% of the users followed the links. I changed the getmsg.cgi script and added a 'Next in thread' and 'Previous in thread' knob. The thread usage grow up to 12-14%. This is still low. Only every 8th user want to read the 'parent' mail or the replies. In other words, don't wast your time for mail threads until you got money or want sell the project. -- Wolfram Schneider http://www.freebsd.org/~wosch/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-database" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-database Mon Apr 20 10:05:45 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA11906 for freebsd-database-outgoing; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:05:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (root@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.13]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA11673 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 17:04:53 GMT (envelope-from wosch@cs.tu-berlin.de) Received: from panke.panke.de (anonymous230.ppp.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.230]) by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA12790; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 18:54:07 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from wosch@localhost) by panke.panke.de (8.8.5/8.6.12) id QAA00591; Mon, 20 Apr 1998 16:56:04 +0200 (MET DST) To: obrien@NUXI.com Cc: freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [PORTS] Pgaccess doesn't run on -current anymore, Update References: <199803250450.UAA27558@rah.star-gate.com> <19980325162504.05717@follo.net> <19980403211835.48113@nuxi.com> From: Wolfram Schneider Date: 20 Apr 1998 16:56:01 +0200 In-Reply-To: "David O'Brien"'s message of Fri, 3 Apr 1998 21:18:35 -0800 Message-ID: Lines: 24 Sender: owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk "David O'Brien" writes: > > www.findmail.com has offered to archive the lists. They have all the > > databases and stuff needed, and I'd guess they also could take the old > > message log. > > Yes we have all the old mailing list traffic archived on > hub:/home/mail/archive. www.findmail.com has a nice user interface. But some things annoyed me: - findmail provide only 9 from 32 (?) FreeBSD mailing lists - findmail search by default only in the last 500 messages, thats less than one week of freebsd-hackers traffic. The truth is in the old emails ;-) findmail.com is an good alternative, but not a replacement for our own mailing list archive. The mailing list archive is a major part of the FreeBSD Web Server. We should not give up control of this service. May be Microsoft will buy www.findmail.com? Microsoft bought so many Internet companies, why not findmail.com? -- Wolfram Schneider http://www.freebsd.org/~wosch/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-database" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-database Tue Apr 21 07:20:12 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA14125 for freebsd-database-outgoing; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 07:20:12 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from tyree.iii.co.uk (tyree.iii.co.uk [195.89.149.230]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA14109 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 14:20:06 GMT (envelope-from nik@iii.co.uk) From: nik@iii.co.uk Received: from carrig.strand.iii.co.uk (carrig.strand.iii.co.uk [192.168.7.25]) by tyree.iii.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA29926; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:19:40 +0100 (BST) Received: (from nik@localhost) by carrig.strand.iii.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.7) id PAA08542; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:18:56 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <19980421151855.07374@iii.co.uk> Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:18:55 +0100 To: Wolfram Schneider Cc: freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [PORTS] Pgaccess doesn't run on -current anymore, Update Reply-To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG References: <19980330123130.39177@caramba.cs.tu-berlin.de> <19980420182258.61494@panke.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.85e In-Reply-To: <19980420182258.61494@panke.de>; from Wolfram Schneider on Mon, Apr 20, 1998 at 06:22:58PM +0200 Organization: interactive investor Sender: owner-freebsd-database@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk My 0.2c [ cc'd to -database. I suspect this is probably better in -chat, and have set reply-to accordingly ] On Mon, Apr 20, 1998 at 06:22:58PM +0200, Wolfram Schneider wrote: > The current usage of the thread database is very low. My impression is > that the average user don't want mail threads. There are ~2000 search > requests and 3000 requests to read a mail (getmsg.cgi) per day. In an > early version of the thread database there where only clickable > Message-ID's and In-Reply-to links. Only 2-3% of the users followed > the links. I changed the getmsg.cgi script and added a 'Next in > thread' and 'Previous in thread' knob. The thread usage grow up to > 12-14%. This is still low. Only every 8th user want to read the > 'parent' mail or the replies. I like threading. A thread *tree* (not just 'next in thread', 'previous in thread' functionality) would let me quickly see which messages prompted lots of replies, which particular thread branch degenerated into a 'Nate v. Terry back-and-forth' argument and so on. It also lets me pull up the thread tree in one Netscape window, and middle click the message links to pull up particular messages in separate windows, which is very handy for browsing the lists. A "Show me all new threads that have started in -hackers in the last 3 days" knob could be quite useful as well. As would a "Here's my e-mail address, please re-mail this thread to me so I can manipulate it in my local e-mail client" (although spamming considerations may mitigate against it). While I'm 'wishlisting without implementing' (RSI is starting to get better, but I have a few more weeks before I can do anything useful) an option to "Restrict search to messages which start threads" would be handy, since it's quite easy to generate lots of hits from messages all in the same thread if the search terms matched the subject of the message. N -- *DON'T DO THIS*. It is *BAD* engineering. *BAD* engineers *DESERVE* to be unemployed, living under park benches, and feeding off of slow moving pigeons. -- Terry Lambert, in comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-database" in the body of the message