Open Source Search FTW! by Grant Ingersoll.
Abstract:
Apache Lucene and Solr are the most widely deployed search technology on the planet, powering sites like Twitter, Wikipedia, Zappos and countless applications across a large array of domains. They are also free, open source, extensible and extremely scalable. Lucene and Solr also contain a large number of features for solving common information retrieval problems ranging from pluggable posting list compression and scoring algorithms to faceting and spell checking. Increasingly, Lucene and Solr also are being (ab)used to power applications going way beyond the search box. In this talk, we’ll explore the features and capabilities of Lucene and Solr 4.x, as well as look at how to (ab)use your search engine technology for fun and profit.
If you aren’t already studying search engines, perhaps these slides will convince you to do so.
When you think about it, search precedes all other computer processing.