17 ms·

How is it that 'Hacker News' still doesn't have search?

29 points by Readmore 19y ago

Come on guys, this is getting stupid. This site has been up for over a year, it's popular, there are tons of new stories everyday, and we still can't search! What's going on?

nreece 19y ago
Your best bet for searching Hacker News for now is http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/ http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/ (an external util)
- Readmore 19y ago
  Thanks. I knew I had seen a post about an external search tool but since I couldn't search the site I couldn't find it again. ;)
  - paulgb 19y ago
    ycsearch.com is not as fancy, but it is a bit easier to remember. Although, I guess it is just as easy to remember site:news.ycombinator.com, which it is functionally equivalent to.
- bootload 19y ago
  but it doesn't pass the "artichoke" test ~ http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/search1/?q=artichoke http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/search1/?q=artichoke
run4yourlives 19y ago
You're a hacker right? You should be building a search tool yourself! :-) Kidding, but yes, I share your frustration.
- ivankirigin 19y ago
  I wonder how easy it would be to make a firefox plugin that let you easily search the site of the tab you're in...
  - chmac 19y ago
    Now that would be awesome. Even better if you could configure your own search engine. I use scroogle, but site:currentsite.com still works... A quick hunt[1] didn't throw up anything for me... [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=current+site+search&status=4 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=current+si...
  - joshwa 19y ago
    google toolbar has a "search this site" button
    - ivankirigin 19y ago
      i don't want a toolbar. The firefox search area is about all i'm willing to use. It would be nice if pressing ctrl-enter to submit (or something as simple) would just search the site. It would also be nice to use another key like alt or shift to dictate whether to open a new tab or use the current one. My guess is that this takes an extension, not a plugin.
  - Xichekolas 19y ago
    I have one made, just trying to figure out how to share it. I can't find anywhere on the Mozilla development site that just lets you upload the xml file. They want to make me fill out a form that builds the plugin for me. Problem is that their form isn't really powerful enough to actually make a decent plugin. What am I missing? For now it has been uploaded to: http://www.lorebroker.com/ycombinator.xml http://www.lorebroker.com/ycombinator.xml Just download and stick in your searchplugins directory (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins in Windows) along with the other plugins you find there.
    - cosmok 19y ago
      I have created a plugin, that can be used for searching ycombinator.It is available here: http://trk7.com/yc http://trk7.com/yc, on just needs to click on it to install in FF and IE7.
Goladus 19y ago
I could be wrong, but I don't think the site has been up quite a year yet...
- Readmore 19y ago
  Yeah you might be right, it sure seems like it's been that long. I'm sure it was here in 06, 9 months is plenty of time to put in "select * where title like '%query%';"
  - pg 19y ago
    The site launched in Feb 07. Doing search right is not just a matter of searching titles. And unless you're prepared to work hard to get it right, you're probably not going to do better than Google.
    - paul 19y ago
      Adding a sitemap might help Google index the old pages better. Adding date-based archive links (like many blogs do) would probably help as well (making the site structure more like a tree and less like a list). https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.html https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.htm...
edu 19y ago
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com
pg 19y ago
What's going on is that I have a few other things to do. Like writing essays and dealing with 58 (so far) startups we've invested in. Since the main advantage of implementing search would be to save people from going all the way to Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+Readmore http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+Readmo...), it's not a huge priority.
- ntoshev 19y ago
  You can easily put a search box executing in-site search in Google. This saves the users the context switch of going to Google.com.
  - axod 19y ago
    Google never spiders everything. I'd be really surprised if google had caught every single story that had been posted here.
    - jey 19y ago
      I know I have had trouble finding things I've seen on news.yc when using Google.
      - rms 19y ago
        I had problems finding stories from before the switch to putting all comments and news stories on item?id=x, because a search would go to a broken link. But the object numbers stayed the same, so if you find a story with a broken link, you can just switch comment?id=x to item?id=x.
        bootload 19y ago
        "... I had problems finding stories from before the switch to putting all comments and news stories on item?id=x, because a search would go to a broken link. ..." Deleted node probably. Means it's been deleted or removed by user and/or was probably edited because it was "spammish" or poor quality in nature. "... so if you find a story with a broken link, you can just switch comment?id=x to item?id=x. ..." This one I noted after some changes in the code probably about 2 months after I started using it. I save all my posts and the links started breaking (link checking). The term was changed from 'comment' to 'item' (guessing) because it was shorter.
tocomment 19y ago
I went ahead and created a Google Coop search here: http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=013284775634912373901%3Avm_-vlwn1zu http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=013284775634912373901%3Avm...
ntoshev 19y ago
Use Google. Search is hard to do if you hack all the code (no external search engine or a database).
andres 19y ago
Google has already indexed this page. Pretty impressive. One quick hack would be to put up a search box that redirects to a google search. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aycombinator.com+%22How+is+it+that+%27Hacker+News%27+still+doesn%27t+have+search%3F%3F%22&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aycombinator....
- dood 19y ago
  Google seems to like news.yc. I week or two ago I did a search for something obscure without using site:news.yc, and it returned a post from this site that had been posted something like 48 minutes before my search.
  - paulgb 19y ago
    I remember a few instances of people submitting google searches as stories and within an hour the news.yc story was showing up in the results.
  - akkartik 19y ago
    The recent stuff is easy, but google seems to not do as well once pages aren't already accessible from the front page.
redrory 19y ago
I agree, a Search will be quite helpful
henning 19y ago
Thank you for confirming my belief that putting up with the JVM or the CLR is worth it because you get awesome libraries like Lucene, Nutch, and most other things you want but don't want to write yourself or come up with an unsatisfactory workaround for. Yes there's Google, but Google lacks transparency and if something doesn't index they won't tell you and there's nothing you can do about it.
kashif 19y ago
With so many hackers here, why doesn't someone familiar with Lisp write a simple search module and send it to PG who can just check it for sanity and plug it in? I know its not easy to do without seeing PG's source code. PG how about making news.yc open-source so we can all work on it?

29 points by Readmore 19y ago

Come on guys, this is getting stupid. This site has been up for over a year, it's popular, there are tons of new stories everyday, and we still can't search! What's going on?

nreece 19y ago

Your best bet for searching Hacker News for now is http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/ http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/ (an external util)

Readmore 19y ago
Thanks. I knew I had seen a post about an external search tool but since I couldn't search the site I couldn't find it again. ;)
- paulgb 19y ago
  ycsearch.com is not as fancy, but it is a bit easier to remember. Although, I guess it is just as easy to remember site:news.ycombinator.com, which it is functionally equivalent to.
bootload 19y ago
but it doesn't pass the "artichoke" test ~ http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/search1/?q=artichoke http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/search1/?q=artichoke

run4yourlives 19y ago

You're a hacker right? You should be building a search tool yourself! :-) Kidding, but yes, I share your frustration.

ivankirigin 19y ago
I wonder how easy it would be to make a firefox plugin that let you easily search the site of the tab you're in...
- chmac 19y ago
  Now that would be awesome. Even better if you could configure your own search engine. I use scroogle, but site:currentsite.com still works... A quick hunt[1] didn't throw up anything for me... [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=current+site+search&status=4 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=current+si...
- joshwa 19y ago
  google toolbar has a "search this site" button
  - ivankirigin 19y ago
    i don't want a toolbar. The firefox search area is about all i'm willing to use. It would be nice if pressing ctrl-enter to submit (or something as simple) would just search the site. It would also be nice to use another key like alt or shift to dictate whether to open a new tab or use the current one. My guess is that this takes an extension, not a plugin.
- Xichekolas 19y ago
  I have one made, just trying to figure out how to share it. I can't find anywhere on the Mozilla development site that just lets you upload the xml file. They want to make me fill out a form that builds the plugin for me. Problem is that their form isn't really powerful enough to actually make a decent plugin. What am I missing? For now it has been uploaded to: http://www.lorebroker.com/ycombinator.xml http://www.lorebroker.com/ycombinator.xml Just download and stick in your searchplugins directory (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins in Windows) along with the other plugins you find there.
  - cosmok 19y ago
    I have created a plugin, that can be used for searching ycombinator.It is available here: http://trk7.com/yc http://trk7.com/yc, on just needs to click on it to install in FF and IE7.

Goladus 19y ago

I could be wrong, but I don't think the site has been up quite a year yet...

Readmore 19y ago
Yeah you might be right, it sure seems like it's been that long. I'm sure it was here in 06, 9 months is plenty of time to put in "select * where title like '%query%';"
- pg 19y ago
  The site launched in Feb 07. Doing search right is not just a matter of searching titles. And unless you're prepared to work hard to get it right, you're probably not going to do better than Google.
  - paul 19y ago
    Adding a sitemap might help Google index the old pages better. Adding date-based archive links (like many blogs do) would probably help as well (making the site structure more like a tree and less like a list). https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.html https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.htm...

edu 19y ago

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com

pg 19y ago

What's going on is that I have a few other things to do. Like writing essays and dealing with 58 (so far) startups we've invested in. Since the main advantage of implementing search would be to save people from going all the way to Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+Readmore http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+Readmo...), it's not a huge priority.

ntoshev 19y ago
You can easily put a search box executing in-site search in Google. This saves the users the context switch of going to Google.com.
- axod 19y ago
  Google never spiders everything. I'd be really surprised if google had caught every single story that had been posted here.
  - jey 19y ago
    I know I have had trouble finding things I've seen on news.yc when using Google.
    - rms 19y ago
      I had problems finding stories from before the switch to putting all comments and news stories on item?id=x, because a search would go to a broken link. But the object numbers stayed the same, so if you find a story with a broken link, you can just switch comment?id=x to item?id=x.
      - bootload 19y ago
        "... I had problems finding stories from before the switch to putting all comments and news stories on item?id=x, because a search would go to a broken link. ..." Deleted node probably. Means it's been deleted or removed by user and/or was probably edited because it was "spammish" or poor quality in nature. "... so if you find a story with a broken link, you can just switch comment?id=x to item?id=x. ..." This one I noted after some changes in the code probably about 2 months after I started using it. I save all my posts and the links started breaking (link checking). The term was changed from 'comment' to 'item' (guessing) because it was shorter.

tocomment 19y ago

I went ahead and created a Google Coop search here: http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=013284775634912373901%3Avm_-vlwn1zu http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=013284775634912373901%3Avm...

ntoshev 19y ago

Use Google. Search is hard to do if you hack all the code (no external search engine or a database).

andres 19y ago

Google has already indexed this page. Pretty impressive. One quick hack would be to put up a search box that redirects to a google search. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aycombinator.com+%22How+is+it+that+%27Hacker+News%27+still+doesn%27t+have+search%3F%3F%22&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aycombinator....

dood 19y ago
Google seems to like news.yc. I week or two ago I did a search for something obscure without using site:news.yc, and it returned a post from this site that had been posted something like 48 minutes before my search.
- paulgb 19y ago
  I remember a few instances of people submitting google searches as stories and within an hour the news.yc story was showing up in the results.
- akkartik 19y ago
  The recent stuff is easy, but google seems to not do as well once pages aren't already accessible from the front page.

redrory 19y ago

I agree, a Search will be quite helpful

henning 19y ago

Thank you for confirming my belief that putting up with the JVM or the CLR is worth it because you get awesome libraries like Lucene, Nutch, and most other things you want but don't want to write yourself or come up with an unsatisfactory workaround for. Yes there's Google, but Google lacks transparency and if something doesn't index they won't tell you and there's nothing you can do about it.

kashif 19y ago

With so many hackers here, why doesn't someone familiar with Lisp write a simple search module and send it to PG who can just check it for sanity and plug it in? I know its not easy to do without seeing PG's source code. PG how about making news.yc open-source so we can all work on it?