On 4/21/06, Barton Willis <willisb at unk.edu> wrote:
>
> If somebody is looking for a mostly non-mathematical project,
> one possibility is to improve 'describe.' What I'm thinking
> about is something like:
>
> (%i1) ? How do I multiply matrices?
> (%o1) [".", matrix_element_mulct]
OK, in this context I'll mention some ideas for making it easier
to find stuff in the documentation ...
(1) Keyword system
Associate keywords with each item.
Search on item names or keywords or both.
(2) Category system
Group items into overlapping, hierarchical categories.
(An item can belong to multiple categories.)
Browse from items to the categories and back.
(3) Fuzzy vs sharp search
? by default is a sharp search (return exact matches only)
?? (new) is a fuzzy search (actually that's more like ? at present)
? falls back on ?? if there are no exact matches
?? groups item name, keyword, and category matches separately
> Currently, if you don't know (or have forgotten) the name of a
> function, you have to keep guessing. Sometimes I resort to
> greping the source.
Yep, that's painful, isn't it!
FWIW
Robert