On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 05:06:31PM +1000, Steve Bennett wrote:
[replies to several messages here]
On 10/24/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I am afraid that as the number of articles grows, the existence of
redirects
becomes increasingly problematic because more and more disambiguation will
be needed. Existing redirects are not considered when disambiguation is
implemented. Redirects ARE problematic and by automagically creating a
vast
number of more redirects it becomes even more of a nightmare.
I assume you're talking about the possibility of implementing aliases as
genuine redirects: yes, that would cause problems. However, if they were
"automagically created", presumably they can be "automagically
destroyed". I
haven't really thought through this idea much - it scares me.
If not, there is no problem, and the existence of aliases will in fact tend
to reduce the number of aliases. A given article with 5 redirects will
probably be replaced by just the article and 5 aliases, which must be much
less expensive to store - a maximum of 6 table entries in my scheme, with no
article text to consider.
I'd like to recommend that anyone who thinks aliases are a Pretty Neat
Idea go locate some coverage of the Come From statement in the
programming language Intercal, and muse upon the potential
similarities.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra(a)baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
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