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Build your own X, a collection of tutorials (Search engine, Neural Net, etc.) (github.com/danistefanovic)
103 points by jkchu on Jan 31, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments



Wow... I am honoured and embarrassed that my very old article about building a web search engine in PHP is on that list.

I should replace it with how to do it in a language I actually like working with one of these days... and generally improve it because its missing all sorts of niceties such as skip lists on the posting lists, binary formats for saving things.

I also noticed all the code is missing as a result of the conversation from Wordpress to Hugo... fixing that now.

EDIT - fixed, but might need a refresh from anyone who visited it.


The quote "What I cannot create, I do not understand" is just plain wrong. From every aspect of the world one can get a mental model and, thus, understands it. Take the weather or planetary relationship: we can't build them but we understand them.


Mental models are always inaccurate and often wrong in many ways. It's just a catch phrase to inspire people to go into the details. Building it provides some clues.

Using what you built, now you're finally exposed to just how many things you can get wrong. It's humbling how much work and love goes into everything.


Feynman said if you understand a concept well, you can it explain it simply

in the age of computing, if you understand a concept well, you can simulate it.


This is an interesting resource. I wish I had learned about this before the lockdown.




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