In <[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] writes:
 
> I have a proposal ... if enough people think this is a good idea, maybe
> it can be brought about.
>
> HP could take the HPSL database files, and put them on a workstation
> outside their corporate firewall, and have them accessible as unformatted
> web pages (i.e., a <PLAINTEXT> at the start).
>
> Within a few days, maybe a week, we would AUTOMATICALLY have a rich
> set of search tools for searching these pages...courtesy of
> altavista, excite, etc!  In other words...for incredibly little effort
> or cost, HP could easily give us high quality search access to the
> documents in the HPSL database...and they wouldn't have had to write a
> single line of search code.
 
[snip]
 
> What do you think?
 
I too would really like the searchability/accessibility of the HPSL to be
improved. I think an HTML-style search engine would be wonderful; my only
hesitation is that if this stuff was mixed in with the billions of other
pages indexed all over the world, I fear that going to altavista and searching
on "bounds violation" (or whatever) would lead to sooooo many other hits in
unrelated sites that it would be difficult if not impossible to actually get
TO the real document you're looking for. OTOH, if they went to the trouble(?)
of putting it on an external machine anyway, why not put it on one with a
WAIS (or similar) search engine on it... Maybe put it up on Jazz(?) even!
 
                -Chris Bartram