I'm also trying to reuse the first paragraph to come up with an update to our front page description to basically define Solr.
I'll think about how I can fit in the cross-language aspects... Perhaps it deserves a second paragraph. One characterization of Solr I've heard in the past is that it's just basically a wrapper around Lucene - something I emphatically disagree with and trying to leave behind a bit. As Solr matures, it needs to stand more on it's own, rather than to define itself in comparison to Lucene or be "easier than Lucene". -Yonik On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 10:23 PM, Israel Ekpo <israele...@gmail.com> wrote: > Your announcement looks great! However, would like to add just a little more > text to the introduction part of Solr especially for people that may have > heard about Lucene before but are hearing about Solr for the very first > time. > > One of the reasons most developers are not involved with using Lucene for > creating search applications is because of the one of the following factors: > > 1. From my perspective, it's a bit complicated to set up and use out of the > box. It involves a fair amount of heavy lifting to make one's search > application utilize most of the features the Java version of lucene has to > offer. > > 2. If your are not using Java, most of the other ports of Lucene are usually > behind in terms of the features offered by the Java version of Lucene. > > 3. In some programming languages such as ActionScript, PHP, Objective-C no > reliable/effective lucene port is available. > > Now, thanks to Solr the "language barrier" excuse is gone, especially > because of the ability to interact with the search server via HTTP and XML. > > Hence, via Solr you can take advantage of virtually all the features Lucene > 2.9 has to offer and even more without any headache of implementing Lucene. > > The power of Web services should never be underestimated. Via, Solr > developers around the world can now deploy the amazing features offered by > Lucene 2.9 in virtually any programming language such as ActionScript, > JavaScript, C, Visual Basic, Objective-C etc. > > Personally, the very first time I heard about Solr, the first impression I > got was that it is just another port of Lucene or Java library based on > Lucene and this is completely false. > > So I think it would be nice if you could include the "http" feature of Solr, > so to speak, in the introduction section of your announcement just to > clarify that it is not just another Java library based on Lucene. > > Again, this addition is targeted only towards individuals just hearing about > Solr for the very first time. > > So I would suggest to add the following text hopefully without cluttering > the presentation: > > --BEGIN-- > Solr is not just another Java library based on Lucene. Nevertheless, powered > by Lucene 2.9 internally, it is a standalone enterprise search server with a > web-services-like API that allows one to index documents in XML or CSV > format over HTTP. The contents of the index then be queried via HTTP and > retrieved as an XML response, therefore making it seamlessly simplistic to > deploy the amazing features offered by the enterprise search server in > virtually any programming language such as ActionScript, JavaScript, C, > Visual Basic, Objective-C etc. > --END-- > > --OPTIONAL-- > It's so easy even a caveman can use it! > --OPTIONAL-- >
