Hoogle At 1.7 Million Searches

Summary: I detail some of the changes in today's Hoogle release; I outline future plans for Hoogle; I plot some statistics, noting that Hoogle has been used for 1.7 million searches.

New Features

Hoogle is a Haskell API search engine, which I've been working on since 2004. Today I updated the web version at http://haskell.org/hoogle, and uploaded a new version to Hackage. Since my last release I've been working on several new features:

• Instant Search - in the top right corner you will see a link entitled "Instant is off". Click that link to turn instant search on, and then searches will be performed as you type. This feature is still experimental, but I already rely on it for my searches.


• Visual Refresh - I've modified the style and layout, trying to improve the general feel, especially when used in conjunction with instant search. I added links to make the package filtering options more accessible and I collapse identical results available from different modules.


• Database Update - thanks to Ian Lynagh and Ross Paterson I've been able to update all the Hoogle databases, including for the base package. In the future I hope to keep Hoogle continuously updated.

Future Plans

There are three big improvements I plan to make to Hoogle:

• Better Data - Hoogle relies on data from Haddock, uploaded to Hackage, by Cabal. This release improves the data, but there are still further improvements to be made. There are several bugs in Haddock, and data for the base library is not yet available on Hackage. If Hoogle could integrate more closely with Cabal then Hoogle could search users local packages. Many of these problems require coordination between several projects, and any offers of help would be welcome. Some bugs: #80, #11, #339, #60, #183.


• Better Search Syntax - the search syntax in Hoogle is acceptable, but isn't that close to other search engines, doesn't always mesh well with instant search and has a number of bugs. I intend to overhaul the search syntax, hopefully improving the feel of Hoogle. Some bugs: #34, #61, #398, #130.


• Improved Database/Searching - type search needs to execute faster and give better results. By executing faster Hoogle will be able to search the whole of Hackage at once. Hoogle has gone through four entirely different iterations of type search already, and I have a design for the fifth version. Some bugs: #79, #324, #30, #336, #381.

Statistics

Hoogle logs the date and contents of each search, but stores no personally identifiable information. These statistics all relate to the number of searches made, not including blank searches or suggestions offered by the Firefox search plugin. In the time between adding a logging facility, and making it log the date (2009-Apr-24), there were 631930 searches. Since then there have been at least 1012414 searches, not taking into account about a month where logging was disabled. Generally, searches range between 1000 and 2500 a day.