[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: boolean search




Francesco,

Any text editor will have hotkey search on case-insensitive character strings, which allows you to use a text file to store and find unstructured text data. For ease of use, I especially like the "incremental search" feature in emacs. A simple textfile, no matter how searchable, may be too free-form for you (and it will not support the embedding of binary objects). If so, what _is_ on your wish list for such an application? Are you thinking of a flat file database? Could you use a spreadsheet?

Don

On Sun, 18 Jun 2006, Francesco Pietra wrote:
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:01:46 +0200
From: Francesco Pietra <frapietra@alice.it>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Cc: debian_amd64 <debian-amd64@lists.debian.org>
Subject: boolean search
Resent-Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:02:19 -0500 (CDT)
Resent-From: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org

What about a boolean search application? I mean to use it as a free-form
personal database, not for internet. Not for a relational database, which is
not what a scientists is aimed at to record scientific literature abstracts.

It would be useful if records could accept embedded graphics, although i do
not pretend that a graphical search is made available.

If such a software is not available for deabian users, why not taking that as
a project? In the hands of an expert programmer, It could simply start as a
boolean search, but, step by step during use, it could be developed also as a
mathematical search (equal to, more than, less than, etc). Such thing is an
indispensable tool for disciplines that are not purely theoretical but also
make recourse to data.

Dont say, please, ask the science list, because what I am proposing is much
wider than that (which justifies the project; moreover, the science list is
dangerously becoming fractionated for specializations). Boolean search is
extremely useful also in business, legal affairs, etc,  and it is far less
time consuming that maintaining a structured database. Not to say of the
boring maintaining of a structured database. While you maintain a free-form
database you just learn. It is the same as traditional learning.

cheers
francesco pietra




--



Reply to: