Re: [EXT] Re: Looking for tips on improving full-text search quality in Postgres

Thanks for replying. My problem is that I can't provide enough guidance on what isn't working, because (a) I don't have
goodenough intuitions about how the normalization options are expected to affect the results, and (b) I can't identify
aspecific missing function - I'm just observing that I can't make the results as high-quality as Solr.
 

My apologies.

Sam

On 3/4/22 10:25 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 08:10:48AM -0500, Bayer, Samuel wrote:
>> Hi all -
>>
>> When I have a need for both sophisticated database querying and
>> full-text search, I'd rather not stand up a technology stack with
>> multiple tools (e.g., Postgres and Apache Solr, or Postgres and
>> ElasticSearch with a zomboDB bridge). So I've been looking at the
>> Postgres full-text search capability, and comparing it to Apache
>> Solr. My experience so far - which has not been entirely anecdotal,
>> but hasn't amounted to a formal TREC-style evaluation - is that
>> Postgres full-text search, in any ranking/normalization configuration
>> I can create, is reliably worse than Solr. Now, I understand that the
>> whole point of Solr is search, and this is a sideline for Postgres,
>> but I'd like to figure out how close Postgres can get, and while I'm
>> knowledgeable about search technologies, I'm not an expert. And I've
>> looked for information on the Web about comparing Postgres search
>> to other search capabilities, and everything I've found so far is
>> extremely basic.
>>
>> Does anybody have any pointers to resources (people, sites, journal
>> articles, blogs, etc.) which are deeply knowledgeable about this
>> comparison?
> 
> Uh, most of our full text seach is done by Russian developers, who are
> obviously very good at it.  It would be helpful if you could list
> exactly what is missing and then we can have a discussion the hackers
> list to see what is possible.  I think it would be helpful  if we just
> document what we _don't_ have.
>