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Building a Simple Search Engine That Works

(karboosx.net)
279 points freediver | 1 comments | 17 Nov 25 03:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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entropoem ◴[17 Nov 25 11:15 UTC] No.45952620[source]▶
Searching in general is difficult. It is really a difficult thing.

If you haven't felt it, look at companies like Apple, Microsoft, or "The most important AI research lab in the world" OpenAI, for example, their products have terrible search features even though their resources - money - technology can be considered top-notch.

replies(2): >>45952679 #>>45953022 #
1. marginalia_nu ◴[17 Nov 25 11:26 UTC] No.45952679[source]▶
I think the reason most companies can't implement a working search box is the sort of work needed to make it perform adequately clashes catastrophically with the software development culture that has emerged in the corporate world (anything to do with sprints, jira, and daily standups).

Getting search to work well requires a lot of fiddling with ranking parameters, work that is difficult bordering on impossible to plan or track. The work requires a degree of trust that developers are rarely afforded these days.