Permuted indices

[Rick Richardson]

In article <1235 at s8.Morgan.COM> amull at Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt) writes:
>More useful? Not in my experience. A permuted index is a good way to
>inflate the number of references you have to read through to get your
>hit.

I have both the ISC version of the OSF/Motif Programmer's Reference
Manual (softcover) and the OSF version (hardcover).  The ISC version
has a permuted index of 18 pages, and the OSF version has a traditional
index of 11 pages (smaller paper, too).  Other than that, the documents
appear to be more or less identical.  If you don't intimately know what
each Motif function does, the OSF index won't help, since most of the
entries are just the function names.  At least in the ISC version,
I can look up "search" and see that there's a function
XmFileSelectionDoSearch(3X).

Granted, the OSF index could be improved by indexing more of the
terms that the permuted index already has.  And both could be
improved by indexing more of the terms in the text itself.

The OSF version is for browsing; I keep it in the Computer Science
Reading Room, near the TP.  The ISC version is well thumbed, and
tends to open to the permuted index.  Hmm...

-Rick

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