Hi,
On custom searches, I know that duckduckgo[1] has a program for
developers. Now is focused on popular languages, but maybe we could put
our own search button in pharo.org to provide that custom search that
harvest the Pharo community intelligence. That could be a project for a
small Pharo hackathon.
[1] https://duckduckhack.com/
On ransomware (I will hold the data you provide me until you pay), yes,
the problem was that we did not start to use FLOSS alternatives before,
mostly because of the effort to setup and maintain them and migration is
costly now. As a small community, addressing that problems to have our
own infrastructure (or scrapping others infrastructure) is expensive, so
we're using gratis infrastructure that cost our collective memory in the
long term.
On STHub, fortunately is live enough to let some of us being productive
without the noise of git in front.
Cheers,
Offray
On 13/01/17 07:01, Dimitris Chloupis wrote:
I though that my example made this clear, apparently it did not so let
me try again.
No SEO is not a problem
SEO is not a problem because we have made the smart move as a
community to host our projects and discussions and documentation to
existing google friendly websites like Github, world.st
<http://world.st> and stackoverflow.
As such its very easy to find documentation about Pharo.
The problem here is what makes Google special, what made it the No1
search engine.
You see before Google there was this search engine called AltaVista,
AltaVista was doing what is relevant to a SEO , it was basically
searching for sites and bringing up accurate search results . So if
Google search was doing just that we will still be using AltaVista and
Google would have never existed.
However what Google devs did that made a huge diffirence was to design
an algorithm using AI techniques that not only returned accurate
results but also related results. This made it possible to withstand
spelling errors or differentiate between search results using the same
name etc. Also customised the experience by keeping track of user's
preferences via google analytics.
As such this poses a problem, that Google not only is able to find a
vast majority of the Pharo documentation because as I said we host it
in websites taking advantage of SEO but also related info. This poses
a problem because Google mixes up pharo results with pharao results,
or maybe its still pharo but its a book, or a music band etc.
The query I provided eliminates a problem that SEO cannot eliminate ,
removing the search results that is highly likely to not be related to
OUR pharo.
However even if this query provides a nice solution it is not
waterproof. For example it does not include many of the blogs that
keep track of pharo progress and document many of its parts. For
example Ben recently posted a very nice guide for UFFI.
Also there is no need for this query if you search for specific class
or method names since its far less likely that Google will return
irrelevant results.
Also another problem is the rapid improvement of Pharo, this something
begineers are not aware because its easy to underestimate how fast
Pharo is moving mainly because of the fact is not popular.
But Pharo moves forward very fast.
So fast that is easy to fall in the trap of finding the right method
and right class but not the up to date version, thus you need also
date and time based search as well that google also provides.
Also you may prefer to find PDFs because you will like a guide or in
depth tutorial instead of some random discussion , or a two pages
tutorial in that case you will add to the query
filteype:PDF
and so on
Learning how to search with Google is an art by itself and no bringing
it inside the Pharo image wont make a big difference to newcomers
because we still need to implement a complex GUI to accommodate for
many different needs. So we will be wasting time recreating Google
inside the Pharo image and you will be using a tool that still
requires to learn things similar what you need to learn for using
Google search.
No matter the language you are learning the workflow is similar, start
with a beginner friendly guide or book, join a forum and ask for
directions, take a look at youtube tutorials and learn how to use Google.
Pharo or no Pharo, you will lose a great deal of efficiency if you do
not learn how to use Google.
So no we do not need to SEO world.st <http://world.st> ,
stackoverflow, github , or slideshare they are doing a pretty good job
Smalltalkhub and blog posts may not be SEO but a) Smalltalkhub is a
dead project no longer maintained other than making sure the server is
online b) we cannot force people to SEO their blogs, thats up to them
