On Tuesday 23 Sep 2003 9:19 pm, rikona wrote: > Hello Anne, > > Monday, September 22, 2003, 12:31:31 AM, you wrote: > > AAW> Don't want to rain on your parade, rikona, but 'natural > language' AW> searches never seemed to give me answers either. > > It is VERY likely that your "natural language" search was nothing > at all like what I am proposing. Just because you can type in a > regular sentence into a search engine means almost nothing. It may > only remove the 'noise' words and look for others, perhaps even > with an 'and' between them. Yech. > > For starters, I am talking about a help system that uses a > thesaurus to translate between the 'natural language' words and the > 'jargon' used in the docs. The system also understands 'help' ideas > such as 'how do I' etc. Other ideas are also used, such as > clustering. It is not just a simple search. > > Also note that almost all inquiries here need more info in addition > to the original question. The system must be interactive to be > really useful. After the first request, the system then makes a > request for more info, just as happens on this list. Based on this > improved 'understanding' of the problem, solutions are then > offered. If need be, these can be further refined. > > AW> Back again, I think, to the fact that no search can give an > answer AW> that isn't in the docs, > > It may be in the docs, but not in a form that is readily accessible > by a simple search. > > AW> the docs are written by those who didn't need to ask > > True. :-)
It's an interesting proposition, but not an overnight job, I think <g> I'll look forward to seeing that in a future Mandrake release? Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet?
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