4 ms·

If you put quotes around the string (the "exact match" operator), the only results are this very thread. So it seems to be working as intended. Basically, you

If you put quotes around the string (the "exact match" operator), the only results are this very thread. So it seems to be working as intended. Basically, you did a fuzzy search and got a fuzzy result. Usually that's what people want. Quotes will let you fine-tune results. Or if you want all results to be strict by default, use verbatim mode. I tested that with the above string and again, only this thread showed up.

underwater 2y ago
But it’s clearly not what people want. Ask any person if a search for a hex encoded ID should be a fuzzy match for a different ID and the answer will be no. As technical people, it’s easy to infer what’s happening under the hood and make excuses for the weirdness. But food product design is about having strong opinions about what should happen, and ignoring our bias is around the limitations of the tech or the status quo. In an age where I can have an entire conversation with a computer or generate a video from text the world’s greatest search engine still doesn’t understand that you can’t fuzzy match an ID? It increasingly feels like Google search is stuck in the past.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Who is this "any person" who's searching for random hex, and how much do you think they care of Google shows them a car instead of whatever thing they're not even actually looking for? the idea that this mythical "any person" even cares about the difference between a useless car result and a page that says no results and then they just move on with their lives is projecting a lot of your own biases onto a hypothetical.
  - ipsum2 2y ago
    Obviously no one would search a completely random hex, but it may represent an ID somewhere, and they want to find out more information about it. e.g. a SHA or MD5 hash.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Agreed, you can look up d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e for example. The question is how critical is it that Google returns a non-useful result vs a page that says there are no results. I think most people don't care, it's not useful either way.
      - jkrejcha 2y ago
        As an aside, for those curious, it's the MD5 of the empty string :)
  - behringer 2y ago
    I search id's all the time. Google is becoming more and more worthless.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >the world’s greatest search engine still doesn’t understand that you can’t fuzzy match an ID? No, not without telling it to run an Exact Match search by enclosing the string in quotes.
- semi 2y ago
  > But it’s clearly not what people want. Ask any person if a search for a hex encoded ID should be a fuzzy match for a different ID and the answer will be no. > in a search field explicitly for hex encoded IDs it shouldn't be In a generic web search that has to guess if my term was a hex encoded id ('cafe' is but almost certainly isn't intended as one..).. it's less obvious. in the case of a clear hex encoded id of sufficient length, i would like to know there are zero exact results, but as long as it's still fast I would love some fuzzy matches after in case there was a typo in my term or in the indexed document.
xp84 2y ago
I get that that's the default now, but can't help but hate it. When you search for like `dog house` to have a bunch of results for just house (marked "Missing: ~dog~" ) it's so dumb. Why would I have typed dog unless that was important to me??
plorg 2y ago
Meanwhile if I search for a specific Bosch solenoid part number there's a 50% chance that any one result will point to some different part number that contains 90% of the digits - even though the specific part number actually exists!
- gravescale 2y ago
  Same for electronic part numbers. Search engines will just go "eh, pretty close" and mix in results for, say, TPS562201 with those for TPS56221.
OwenFM 2y ago
This sets things up for all sorts of problems when people don't notice that the IDs aren't exactly the same. At the moment, Google happens to be choosing car dealers as a fallback, but what if it instead fell back to a page "transaction a67cedf has been confirmed"?

underwater 2y ago

But it’s clearly not what people want. Ask any person if a search for a hex encoded ID should be a fuzzy match for a different ID and the answer will be no. As technical people, it’s easy to infer what’s happening under the hood and make excuses for the weirdness. But food product design is about having strong opinions about what should happen, and ignoring our bias is around the limitations of the tech or the status quo. In an age where I can have an entire conversation with a computer or generate a video from text the world’s greatest search engine still doesn’t understand that you can’t fuzzy match an ID? It increasingly feels like Google search is stuck in the past.

fragmede 2y ago
Who is this "any person" who's searching for random hex, and how much do you think they care of Google shows them a car instead of whatever thing they're not even actually looking for? the idea that this mythical "any person" even cares about the difference between a useless car result and a page that says no results and then they just move on with their lives is projecting a lot of your own biases onto a hypothetical.
- ipsum2 2y ago
  Obviously no one would search a completely random hex, but it may represent an ID somewhere, and they want to find out more information about it. e.g. a SHA or MD5 hash.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Agreed, you can look up d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e for example. The question is how critical is it that Google returns a non-useful result vs a page that says there are no results. I think most people don't care, it's not useful either way.
    - jkrejcha 2y ago
      As an aside, for those curious, it's the MD5 of the empty string :)
- behringer 2y ago
  I search id's all the time. Google is becoming more and more worthless.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
Dalewyn 2y ago
>the world’s greatest search engine still doesn’t understand that you can’t fuzzy match an ID? No, not without telling it to run an Exact Match search by enclosing the string in quotes.
semi 2y ago
> But it’s clearly not what people want. Ask any person if a search for a hex encoded ID should be a fuzzy match for a different ID and the answer will be no. > in a search field explicitly for hex encoded IDs it shouldn't be In a generic web search that has to guess if my term was a hex encoded id ('cafe' is but almost certainly isn't intended as one..).. it's less obvious. in the case of a clear hex encoded id of sufficient length, i would like to know there are zero exact results, but as long as it's still fast I would love some fuzzy matches after in case there was a typo in my term or in the indexed document.

xp84 2y ago

I get that that's the default now, but can't help but hate it. When you search for like `dog house` to have a bunch of results for just house (marked "Missing: ~dog~" ) it's so dumb. Why would I have typed dog unless that was important to me??

plorg 2y ago

Meanwhile if I search for a specific Bosch solenoid part number there's a 50% chance that any one result will point to some different part number that contains 90% of the digits - even though the specific part number actually exists!

gravescale 2y ago
Same for electronic part numbers. Search engines will just go "eh, pretty close" and mix in results for, say, TPS562201 with those for TPS56221.

OwenFM 2y ago

This sets things up for all sorts of problems when people don't notice that the IDs aren't exactly the same. At the moment, Google happens to be choosing car dealers as a fallback, but what if it instead fell back to a page "transaction a67cedf has been confirmed"?