tye,

Yes, you were the god I was referring to.

I recall quickly getting the impression that creamygoodness was inclined to "pick a fight" when not given the exact desired answer.

Naturally, I think this is an unfair characterization and I dispute it. I don't think the cumulative record of my posts at PerlMonks bears it out, and I don't think it accurately portrays my chatterbox history, either.

Nevertheless, I'm dismayed that you took away that impression from our many conversations, because you've been one of the most helpful chatterbox denizens, particularly on XS questions -- even when we've disagreed. I recall that exchanges have often flowed like this:

creamygoodness: How do I do X?
tye: Like this...
tye: But don't do X, do Y instead.
creamygoodness: Thanks! (:
creamygoodness: FYI, I'm still going to do X, and here's why...

It's true that I haven't always applied the exact solutions that you've advocated, and that I have often bailed out of the chatterbox before successfully persuading you that X was superior to Y for the application at hand. (Past discussions of Module::Build vs. MakeMaker and handling of labeled args via XS spring to mind.) But you've often provided me with the necessary background to make an informed decision, and I'm grateful for that.

I also recall a chatterbox exchange (but can't provide a transcript, natch) where you advanced the arguments in favor of Google site search over a custom coded search. I've had that conversation many times with many people, because deploying Google site search is a popular way to provide a low-maintenance search option. You made the case well, and I took away the impression that you were committed to that approach.

That got rather tiresome so I wasn't inclined to spend the time, effort, patience to try to counter things and try to ensure effective communication

Well, I suppose that explains how some miscommunications and mistaken impressions snowballed.

I just thought you were just a loveable, laconic curmudeon, dispensing useful advice to the young'ns then alternately grumbling or stewing when they didn't follow it to the letter... Hmm, I still think that. ;)

I don't think I got past that to attempt to convey that producing a proof of concept and working out a lot of the details and demonstrating momentum could then be followed by switching to hosting the project at PerlMonks. That is where I would really prefer things to end up, for a lot of reasons.

I appreciate the clarification. Indeed, this is exactly the opposite of what I thought.

The spidering interface seemed such a clumsy way to get a one-time database dump, it inspired all manner of idle speculation. For instance: Was the back end of PerlMonks so deeply screwed up that supporting custom-coded search was really going to be a nightmare and thus clearly justifying your [apparent] preference for Google site search?

It looked to me like you had made a perfectly reasonable engineering decision to outsource search to Google, and that it was therefore going to be difficult to get a custom coded search accepted and hosted at PerlMonks.

the right way to get access to node rep is to host the index at PerlMonks.

Agreed.

So, yes, build a separate KinoSearch that works using its own database and web pages. But plan for that to get installed onto the PerlMonks servers so that new nodes and node updates can be efficiently and quickly funneled off to it to be re-indexed.

Good plan. As mentioned previously, I don't have a lot of time right now to work on anything other than the KS core. Like the gods, I have pending patches to evaluate and apply... But it's good to know that if the project rekindles and demonstrates its usefulness, it has a decent shot at integration.