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From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Fish Compendium Name (Re: CD-ROM for the Amiga)
Keywords: Sun CD-ROM
Message-ID: <1886@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 18 Aug 90 14:37:15 GMT
Lines: 55
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <81414@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, foy@aerospace.aero.org (Richard Foy) writes:
>In article <1990Aug18.054937.11246@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>>lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
>...
>>>This is why it is so important to have a CD-ROM
>>>available that will sell fairly well; one that will cause folks to go out and
>>>buy a drive. Personally, I think that a _fully_ indexed Fred Fish collection,
>>>whether it be on 1 disk or 3, along with a good search engine, would be the
>>>catalyst that starts the ball rolling (or the CD-ROM spinning).
>>
>>Another solution of course is to make the Amiga software and hardware
>>compatible with the existing CD-ROM data disks.
>>
>I would be perfectly happy to have all of the Fish Disks just copied
>onto the CD Rom. 
>
>Currently I have a simple ARexx program that does  apretty good job
>of finding things. I have copied all of the Fish Contents files 
>(for the approx 300 disks which I onto my hard drive). The ARexx
>program searches those files in the background and when it finishes 
>the whole list it opens a window with all of the hits.
>
>It is not very sophisticated. If I had the complete disks on a CD-Rom,
>it would be very simple to enhance the ARexx script to do much more.

Having just the unindexed contents of all the disks on a CD-ROM is rather like
using a hard drive as if it were a tape unit. It is a little handier than
having 300 floppies and the contents files on HD, but not a heck of a lot.
Searching by looking through the contents themselves is a slow procedure at
best.

Imagine the enhanced utility of being able to say something like:

  find <sector & editor> & ~diskx

and find out within 3 or 4 seconds how many sector editors there are on the
Fish disks, what their names are, and be presented with the option to further
narrow or widen the search, or to display the appropriate file(s). This same
operation using conventional search methods on contents files alone would take
a WHOLE lot longer, not to mention the searches you might do on words that are
not in the contents files, but are embedded in code, readmes, or doc files.

A screwdriver can be used as a hammer, but it really is better to use the right
tools for the job at hand.

-larry

--
It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs.
    -D.Wolfskill
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
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