* Simon Cozens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2004-08-24 11:19]: > I think that the world moved from browse to search some time in > the mid 90s (hell, we're even being encouraged to search rather > than browse email these days) and that this is because browsing > is useful if your search engine isn't good enough.
I object. Browsing is problematic when the amount of data becomes overwhelming, but it is useful as a concept. Have you ever been to a library or a music store and strolled through the corridors, just browsing the collection in a general area of interest somewhat aimlessly to see what's there? Sometimes, you happen onto extraordinarily interesting stuff you'd never known to look for, simply by association. Browsing is useful. Searching is left-brained, browsing is right-brained. I mourn the fact that it has become somewhat forgotten, occasionally even maligned as inefficient, in a society that moves towards exposing individuals to more and more information to be processed in ever shorter timeframes. (Read Clifford Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" for more thoughts on that matter; it is dated in a few aspects but remains valid.) Note that I'm not drawing any consequences about the module list; I'm a supporter of getting rid of it. It hasn't been useful in browsing for a long time. I also wonder whether the large mass of entities nowadays available on CPAN can reasonably be arranged such that browsing could feasibly be useful. Afterall, great and enjoyable and wonderful as browsing may be, it does require a well organized collection with batches of limited size -- if there is too little variation or too much mass in any single category, looking over a list becomes a boring, monotonous chore, and all the right-brain aspects of it are lost. Mostly, I just felt the need to hop on my soap box and disagree on principal terms. :-) Regards, -- Aristotle "If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't take life seriously enough."
