Re: Infocenter searches (Not!)

["John Taylor" <jtaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Buck,


> I offer the following only to explain what has helped me.  Having had to
> live with web searches that return millions of hits, I've learnt the hard
> way not to search for a single word; it's exasperating.  They have a
program
> that runs and picks 'likely' words to stuff in the machine index.  If
> WRKOBJPDM occurs a thousand times, it gets stuffed in the index a thousand
> times.  It's up to the search engine to filter that stuff out of the raw
> index, and I have taken to the notion that *I* am an integral part of that
> filtering.  Is that a bright idea?  Beats me, but it's how I've got it to
> work _for me_.

Try http://msdn.microsoft.com

- click Advanced Search
- restrict search results to Visual Basic
- search for a very generic term  - I tried "Dim"

The search resulted in 100 hits. At the top of the list was an usage example
of the Dim statement; the next link was the specific documenation from the
VB Applications Reference. Below that are links of the type you're talking
about - where "dim" occurs somewhere within the text.

But maybe that's too easy! So go back and try it again, this time letting
the search engine consider ALL of the available material on MSDN. Guess
what.... the first page of results still contains the most relevant links.



> If you _know_ where in the manual hierarchy to look, don't search -
> navigate.

Then why bother with softcopy at all? I think it can be argued that one of
the greatest advantages of softcopy documentation is the (potentially)
powerful search capabilities.


> I went through the 'Man I HATE this!' phase several times.  I thought the
> book manager was... well, what I thought is unprintable.  I am never
really
> comfortable with any form of soft copy, but I deal with it.  It's
incredibly
> unlikely that IBM is going to abandon the concept, so instead of fighting
it

Abandonment isn't the only option. First and foremost, we're saying FIX IT!
If that ultimately means abandoning it, then so be it.

> I have worked as hard as possible to learn the new system's limitations
and
> work around them.  I've clicked and sent in suggestions and I've struggled
> to become more proficient.  Until I 'let go' of my old ideas of how to get
> at information I was a consistent failure and I guess I'm not smart enough
> to do anything other than abandon my old ways and try to work with the
new.

With all due respect... hogwash. The problem with Infocenter is not the
people using it. You only need to look at any number of superior efforts
(ie: MSDN, Sun) to see that we're suffering needlessly.


Regards,

John Taylor