Lucene

[Adam Hardy]

Hi,

does anybody here have experience with Lucene?

Is it big? Is it easy to learn / difficult? Tricky or straightforward?

I'm thinking for applying for a job where it's listed as a requirement
but I'd have to learn Lucene first and I just want to find out if that's
a viable proposition or too big a task to tackle if there's no guarantee
of getting the position.

If it's not a big effort to learn it, it would be great to have the
knowledge anyway, but if it's a bit of nightmare like struts was once,
then I'll not take the risk.

Thanks!

Adam

[Frank Carver]

On 13 January 2011 09:23, Adam Hardy <adam....@cyberspaceroad.com> wrote:
> does anybody here have experience with Lucene?
>
> Is it big? Is it easy to learn / difficult? Tricky or straightforward?

Depends how deep you want to get.

Writing software to use Lucene is pretty much trivial. It's got a good
API with an understandable structure and generally "just works".

Configuring and tinkering with the internals if you want to do strange
custom stuff can get fairly complex.

Lucene on a job ad usually implies that whatever you will be working
on already uses Lucene, I'd be surprised if you need anything other
than a basic brush up and a bit of a play with it.

Frank.

[Matt Dudbridge]

Hi Adam,

I used Lucene in a previous role, but this was about 4 years ago so I can't pass you any up-to-date links.

I found it pretty straight forward to pick-up - it helps if you have a basic understanding of information retrieval and indexing.

Good luck with the interview.

Cheers,
Matt

Tapped by Matt on one of those iPhones

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JAVAWUG" group.
> To post to this group, send email to jav...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javawug+u...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javawug?hl=en.
>

[Adam Hardy]

Thanks for the hints, Frank & Matt - I don't have the interview yet, I
haven't even contacted them yet - I don't want to be in the situation
where the recruitment consultant tries to filter me out with a couple of
basic Lucene questions.

Best regards
Adam

[Dominic Oyeniran]

Hello Adam,

I also used Lucene around 5 years ago when its probably not as mature as I suppose it is now.
My experience of learning  and using it then was good and easy. I had to integrate it into a project with strict timeline and no worries.

In addition to standard information retrieval capabilities, it can also do fuzzy queries and free text.

A testament to its success is its inclusion in Hibernate search!

All the best.

/Dominic