4 ms·

A smart, playful book about the underappreciated index

40 points by prostoalex 5y ago

dang 5y ago
One related post but not much there: Index, a history of the - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28597724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28597724 - Sept 2021 (2 comments)
bovermyer 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220216135221/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/books/review-index-history-of-dennis-duncan.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220216135221/https://www.nytim... I love useful indexes. I didn't realize there were books written solely about them, though. I'll have to pick this up.
leobg 5y ago
Funny. Been reading this on and off for the last few weeks. Many clever tricks used today by SQLite or Google are in fact quite ancient technology.
Finnucane 5y ago
"Duncan finds analogous anxieties in our Age of Search — the suspicion that by making it ever easier to access information, Google might in fact be making us lazier and dumber, allowing us to glide along the shallows instead of forcing us to venture into the depths. Duncan is less worried. " Considering the several discussions here about how Google is letting its ad business and other corporate concerns distort search, and how users are trying to get around that to find actually useful indexing, this seems like a fairly naive response.
- mountainb 5y ago
  Mainstream search provides easier access to the equivalent of junk mail. Some paid search engines that index actually useful information can be pretty good. But right now Google just gives you the best spam that it can find, and potentially something halfway useful like the digital equivalent of a catalog entry for a book you can buy.
  - alangibson 5y ago
    There are paid search engines?
    - gowld 5y ago
      Lexis-Nexis
      - alangibson 5y ago
        That's more of a for-pay library with a search engine.
    - eitland 5y ago
      Kagi (still closed beta, extremely good, think of a modern version of Google at its best sometime between 2006-2010) Neeva (freemium. No idea about the quality since it is not available to anyone except those located in the US it seems)
Ruecker 5y ago
steve_coral 5y ago
For a fictional analogue to this lovely book, check out Pale Fire by Nabokov. The book begins as ostensibly a long poem but slowly unravels itself in the index and end notes

40 points by prostoalex 5y ago

dang 5y ago

One related post but not much there: Index, a history of the - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28597724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28597724 - Sept 2021 (2 comments)

bovermyer 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220216135221/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/books/review-index-history-of-dennis-duncan.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220216135221/https://www.nytim... I love useful indexes. I didn't realize there were books written solely about them, though. I'll have to pick this up.

leobg 5y ago

Funny. Been reading this on and off for the last few weeks. Many clever tricks used today by SQLite or Google are in fact quite ancient technology.

Finnucane 5y ago

"Duncan finds analogous anxieties in our Age of Search — the suspicion that by making it ever easier to access information, Google might in fact be making us lazier and dumber, allowing us to glide along the shallows instead of forcing us to venture into the depths. Duncan is less worried. " Considering the several discussions here about how Google is letting its ad business and other corporate concerns distort search, and how users are trying to get around that to find actually useful indexing, this seems like a fairly naive response.

mountainb 5y ago
Mainstream search provides easier access to the equivalent of junk mail. Some paid search engines that index actually useful information can be pretty good. But right now Google just gives you the best spam that it can find, and potentially something halfway useful like the digital equivalent of a catalog entry for a book you can buy.
- alangibson 5y ago
  There are paid search engines?
  - gowld 5y ago
    Lexis-Nexis
    - alangibson 5y ago
      That's more of a for-pay library with a search engine.
  - eitland 5y ago
    Kagi (still closed beta, extremely good, think of a modern version of Google at its best sometime between 2006-2010) Neeva (freemium. No idea about the quality since it is not available to anyone except those located in the US it seems)

Ruecker 5y ago

steve_coral 5y ago

For a fictional analogue to this lovely book, check out Pale Fire by Nabokov. The book begins as ostensibly a long poem but slowly unravels itself in the index and end notes