On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 10:55:36PM +0300, Vadim V. Zhytnikov wrote:
> Guenter Nowak writes:
>
> >> Following recent discussion suggest the following scheme
> >> ? foo - exact search
> >> ?? foo - inexact search as substring
> >
> > ?! foo;
> > is an exact search currently implemented in maxima
> > mfg guenter nowak
>
> Yes, I know this.
> But I propose to replace ?! by ?? since ?? seems to be
> a bit more convenient and intuitive (pure IMHO).
> And swap ? and (?? or ?!) functionality.
> Why? With current setup ? often returns too many items.
How about the following:
? finds an exact match if available, and says something like "exact
match found, use ?? to expand the search"
? falls back to the ?? functionality when no exact match can be found,
and says "no exact match found, falling back to inexact matching"
?? always does a full inexact match
I think from a logical perspective, ?? should search more broadly than
? just because it seems to imply a greater uncertainty about what
you're looking for to have more question marks.
We should strive to allow the simplest model to explain the
functionality, it's easier to learn that way.
--
Daniel Lakeland
dlakelan at street-artists.org
http://www.street-artists.org/~dlakelan