Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
On 27.03.2011, at 01:05, Israel Ekpo wrote: Lukas, How do you think it should have been designed? Most libraries are not going to have all the features that you need and while there may be features about the library that you do not like others may really appreciate them being there. As I said earlier in an earlier email a couple of months ago, the SolrQuery:set(), get() and add() methods do exist for you to use if you prefer not to use the feature specific methods in the SolrQuery class, thats the beauty of it. The PECL extension was something I designed to use on a personal project and it was really helpful in managing faceted search and other features that solr has to offer. I decided to share it with the PHP community because I felt others might need similar functionality. So it is possible that they may have been use cases that applied to my project that may not be applicable to yours I initially used the SolrJ API to access Solr via Java and then when I had a PHP project I decided to use something similar to SolrJ but at the time there was nothing similar in the PHP realm http://lucene.apache.org/solr/api/org/apache/solr/client/solrj/package-summary.html A review of the SolrJ API will offer more explanations on some of the features present in the PECL API I will really love to get feedback from others about the design of the PECL library about any other missing or extraneous features Sorry for taking so long to get back. I think to a large extend of course documentation would help, because right now there is just the list of methods with a short description. Of course I realize that its great that you released this to begin with and that I totally get why you are not spending hours to write descriptions and examples. Hey this is something where we the users should help. Aside from this, it might be worthwhile to separate the list of methods somehow, maybe through inheritance, to ensure that users arent in the end searching through the long list of methods, where really all they want to do is convert an existing Solr query into your API (which imho works just fine with the generalized set/get/add methods). These specialized sugar syntax methods in the beginning let me to believe they were somehow necessary causing me to spend quite a bit of time searching for the right one. And like I said one key feature I needed was deconstructing user supplied queries and constructing new queries out of that [1]. But I acknowledge this might be fairly advanced, though even in my simple projects I pretty much always ended up needing a quote method. Hmm actually thinking about this some more, I guess I also ended up preferring pure PHP implementations because they simple integrate better with my IDE, that of course has no knowledge of the PECL Solr API. This to some extend circles back to the documentation argument, but of course goes a bit further. Its just more convenient to explore and learn the API via tab completion, which is of course not so easy to offer via a C extension API :-/ regards, Lukas Kahwe Smith m...@pooteeweet.org [1] http://pooteeweet.org/blog/1796
Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
Lukas, How do you think it should have been designed? Most libraries are not going to have all the features that you need and while there may be features about the library that you do not like others may really appreciate them being there. As I said earlier in an earlier email a couple of months ago, the SolrQuery:set(), get() and add() methods do exist for you to use if you prefer not to use the feature specific methods in the SolrQuery class, thats the beauty of it. The PECL extension was something I designed to use on a personal project and it was really helpful in managing faceted search and other features that solr has to offer. I decided to share it with the PHP community because I felt others might need similar functionality. So it is possible that they may have been use cases that applied to my project that may not be applicable to yours I initially used the SolrJ API to access Solr via Java and then when I had a PHP project I decided to use something similar to SolrJ but at the time there was nothing similar in the PHP realm http://lucene.apache.org/solr/api/org/apache/solr/client/solrj/package-summary.html A review of the SolrJ API will offer more explanations on some of the features present in the PECL API I will really love to get feedback from others about the design of the PECL library about any other missing or extraneous features Thanks. On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 4:04 AM, Lukas Kahwe Smith m...@pooteeweet.orgwrote: On 07.03.2011, at 09:43, Stefan Matheis wrote: Burak, what's wrong with the existing PHP-Extension (http://php.net/manual/en/book.solr.php)? the main issue i see with it is that the API isn't designed much. aka it just exposes lots of features with dedicated methods, but doesnt focus on keeping the API easy to overview (aka keep simple things simple and make complex stuff possible). at the same time fundamental stuff like quoting are not covered. that being said, i do not think we really need a proliferation of solr API's for PHP, even if this one is based on PHP 5.3 (namespaces etc). btw there is already another PHP 5.3 based API, though it tries to also unify other Lucene based API's as much as possible: https://github.com/dstendardi/Ariadne regards, Lukas Kahwe Smith m...@pooteeweet.org -- °O° Good Enough is not good enough. To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. Quality First. Measure Twice. Cut Once. http://www.israelekpo.com/
Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
How about the Solr PHP Client (http://code.google.com/p/solr-php-client/)? We use this and have been quite happy with it, and it seems that it addresses all of the concerns you expressed. What advantages does yours offer? Liam On 8 March 2011 17:02, Burak burak...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/07/2011 12:43 AM, Stefan Matheis wrote: Burak, what's wrong with the existing PHP-Extension (http://php.net/manual/en/book.solr.php)? I think wrong is not the appropriate word here. But if I had to summarize why I wrote this API: * Not everybody is enthusiastic about adding another item to an already long list of server dependencies. I just wanted a pure PHP option. * I am not a C programmer either so the ability to understand the source code and modify it according to my needs is another advantage. * Yes, a PECL package would be faster. However, in 99% of the cases, after everything is said, coded, and byte-code cached, my biggest bottlenecks end up being the database and network. * Last of all, choice is what open source means to me. Burak -- Liam O'Boyle IntelligenceBank Pty Ltd Level 1, 31 Coventry Street Southbank, Victoria 3006, Australia P: +613 8618 7810 F: +613 8618 7899 M: +61 403 88 66 44 *Awarded 2010 Best New Business and Business of the Year - Business3000 Awards* This email and any attachments are confidential and may contain legally privileged information or copyright material. If you are not an intended recipient, please contact us at once by return email and then delete both messages. We do not accept liability in connection with transmission of information using the internet.
Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
Burak, what's wrong with the existing PHP-Extension (http://php.net/manual/en/book.solr.php)? Regards Stefan On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Burak burak...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, I have recently finished writing a PHP API for Solr and have released it under the Apache License. The project is called Logic Solr API and is located at https://github.com/buraks78/Logic-Solr-API/wiki. It has good unit test coverage (over 90%) but is still in alpha. So I am primarily interested in some feedback and help for testing if anybody is interested as my test setup is pretty limited in regards to the Solr version (1.4.1), PHP version (5.3.5), and Solr setup (data required for testing certain features fully is missing). The documentation is located at https://github.com/buraks78/Logic-Solr-API/wiki. Although it is pretty weak at this point, I believe it can get you started. I also have phpdocs under docs/api folder in the package if needed. Burak
Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
On 07.03.2011, at 09:43, Stefan Matheis wrote: Burak, what's wrong with the existing PHP-Extension (http://php.net/manual/en/book.solr.php)? the main issue i see with it is that the API isn't designed much. aka it just exposes lots of features with dedicated methods, but doesnt focus on keeping the API easy to overview (aka keep simple things simple and make complex stuff possible). at the same time fundamental stuff like quoting are not covered. that being said, i do not think we really need a proliferation of solr API's for PHP, even if this one is based on PHP 5.3 (namespaces etc). btw there is already another PHP 5.3 based API, though it tries to also unify other Lucene based API's as much as possible: https://github.com/dstendardi/Ariadne regards, Lukas Kahwe Smith m...@pooteeweet.org
Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
When are you going to complete the Texis Search API? On 3/6/11 2:31 PM, Burak wrote: Hello, I have recently finished writing a PHP API for Solr and have released it under the Apache License. The project is called Logic Solr API and is located at https://github.com/buraks78/Logic-Solr-API/wiki. It has good unit test coverage (over 90%) but is still in alpha. So I am primarily interested in some feedback and help for testing if anybody is interested as my test setup is pretty limited in regards to the Solr version (1.4.1), PHP version (5.3.5), and Solr setup (data required for testing certain features fully is missing). The documentation is located at https://github.com/buraks78/Logic-Solr-API/wiki. Although it is pretty weak at this point, I believe it can get you started. I also have phpdocs under docs/api folder in the package if needed. Burak
Re: New PHP API for Solr (Logic Solr API)
On 03/07/2011 12:43 AM, Stefan Matheis wrote: Burak, what's wrong with the existing PHP-Extension (http://php.net/manual/en/book.solr.php)? I think wrong is not the appropriate word here. But if I had to summarize why I wrote this API: * Not everybody is enthusiastic about adding another item to an already long list of server dependencies. I just wanted a pure PHP option. * I am not a C programmer either so the ability to understand the source code and modify it according to my needs is another advantage. * Yes, a PECL package would be faster. However, in 99% of the cases, after everything is said, coded, and byte-code cached, my biggest bottlenecks end up being the database and network. * Last of all, choice is what open source means to me. Burak
