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That not how indices work. It is by person or subject not "idea". You can do the same thing but better with a "ctrl-f" search.

bluGill 2y ago
Not really. An index is also a list of ideas you should search for. Search for a synonym and control-f fails, but the index will have a "see also" for that, or worst case lets you scan for interesting words without reading the whole book. The index will also leave out all the places where a word happens to be used but are not useful to someone searching for the term. Of course a good index is hard (read expensive) to write and so many books didn't have good indexes.
- eesmith 2y ago
  I got "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" for Christmas, by the Weinersmiths. The index is so good I've shared my happiness about it several times.
smarx007 2y ago
Good indices are built atop a taxonomy that is then used extensively to list related taxonomic terms. This will give you direct hierarchical terms (loosely maps to what I guess you refer to as by subject) but also related terms. A good indexer will also exercise judgement and check with the author if certain terms are related and in what way. Let me give you an example of a high-quality index entry from the Software Architecture in Practice (Bass et al. 2021) [1]: Availability analytic model space, 259 analyzing, 255–259 broker pattern, 240 calculations, 259 CAP theorem, 523 CIA approach, 147 cloud, 521 design checklist, 96–98 detect faults tactic, 87–91 general scenario, 85–86 introduction, 79–81 planning for failure, 82–85 prevent faults tactic, 94–95 recover-from-faults tactics, 91–94 summary, 98–99 tactics overview, 87 As you see, it lists a number of taxonomic terms that are merely related to each other and you might not think about Ctrl+F-ing for them unless you already want to search for them. You may come to this entry knowing about CAP and navigate away to analytic model space, 259. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-architecture-in-practice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-archit...

bluGill 2y ago

Not really. An index is also a list of ideas you should search for. Search for a synonym and control-f fails, but the index will have a "see also" for that, or worst case lets you scan for interesting words without reading the whole book. The index will also leave out all the places where a word happens to be used but are not useful to someone searching for the term. Of course a good index is hard (read expensive) to write and so many books didn't have good indexes.

eesmith 2y ago
I got "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" for Christmas, by the Weinersmiths. The index is so good I've shared my happiness about it several times.

smarx007 2y ago

Good indices are built atop a taxonomy that is then used extensively to list related taxonomic terms. This will give you direct hierarchical terms (loosely maps to what I guess you refer to as by subject) but also related terms. A good indexer will also exercise judgement and check with the author if certain terms are related and in what way. Let me give you an example of a high-quality index entry from the Software Architecture in Practice (Bass et al. 2021) [1]: Availability analytic model space, 259 analyzing, 255–259 broker pattern, 240 calculations, 259 CAP theorem, 523 CIA approach, 147 cloud, 521 design checklist, 96–98 detect faults tactic, 87–91 general scenario, 85–86 introduction, 79–81 planning for failure, 82–85 prevent faults tactic, 94–95 recover-from-faults tactics, 91–94 summary, 98–99 tactics overview, 87 As you see, it lists a number of taxonomic terms that are merely related to each other and you might not think about Ctrl+F-ing for them unless you already want to search for them. You may come to this entry knowing about CAP and navigate away to analytic model space, 259. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-architecture-in-practice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14786083-software-archit...