Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pcrat!rick From: rick@pcrat.uucp (Rick Richardson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: Permuted indices Message-ID: <1990Jul16.045730.10521@pcrat.uucp> Date: 16 Jul 90 04:57:30 GMT References: <1990Jul08.224741.1366@virtech.uucp> <1990Jul12.044550.19213@ico.isc.com> <1235@s8.Morgan.COM> Reply-To: rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) Distribution: comp Organization: PC Research, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ Lines: 30 In article <1235@s8.Morgan.COM> amull@Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt) writes: >More useful? Not in my experience. A permuted index is a good way to >inflate the number of references you have to read through to get your >hit. I have both the ISC version of the OSF/Motif Programmer's Reference Manual (softcover) and the OSF version (hardcover). The ISC version has a permuted index of 18 pages, and the OSF version has a traditional index of 11 pages (smaller paper, too). Other than that, the documents appear to be more or less identical. If you don't intimately know what each Motif function does, the OSF index won't help, since most of the entries are just the function names. At least in the ISC version, I can look up "search" and see that there's a function XmFileSelectionDoSearch(3X). Granted, the OSF index could be improved by indexing more of the terms that the permuted index already has. And both could be improved by indexing more of the terms in the text itself. The OSF version is for browsing; I keep it in the Computer Science Reading Room, near the TP. The ISC version is well thumbed, and tends to open to the permuted index. Hmm... -Rick -- Rick Richardson | Looking for FAX software for UNIX/386 ??? Ask About: |Mention PC Research,Inc.| FaxiX - UNIX Facsimile System (tm) |FAX# for uunet!pcrat!rick| FaxJet - HP LJ PCL to FAX (Send WP,Word,Pagemaker...)|Sample (201) 389-8963 | JetRoff - troff postprocessor for HP LaserJet and FAX|Output