Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 21:06:34 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: Francisco Reyes <francisco@natserv.com>, FreeBSd Chat list <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: mailing list archives Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.95.961227204329.12503M-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu> In-Reply-To: <12736.851321416@time.cdrom.com>
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On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > Do any of the existing databases for FreeBSD may be good for this? > > Postgres or > > Msql? If none of them do what you need I could work on something. I > > would need some help though. Basically I could work on the file > > I haven't looked in detail, but I suspect the conclusion will be > "postgres is too heavy" and "msql is too light." It isn't so much weight as being inappropriate for the task. Using postgres would be like entering long haul tractor trailer rig in the Indianapolis 500. Using msql would be like using a GMC Suburban in the same context. Relational databases in general are not well suited for tasks where record and field structure has a lot of variability, eg mail. The tools of choice for text will be based on either inverted indexes or vector representations. The better of these will offer stemming, synonym matching and soundex matching. The best is a hybrid that provides advanced text searching functionality in the context of a structured document. The current archives work reasonably well for finding a relevant message. However, with some use you will notice that you tend to retrieve other messages stating a similar question to yours, not the answer. (This shouldn't actually come as a surprise.) To get the answers, we need thread retrieval. For this, I don't think we need new indexing software, we just need to figure out how to take an existing message and *automatically* formulate appropriate queries to build the thread from it. -john
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