[seqfan] Re: Announcements: faster search, new Sys Admin

[hv at crypt.org]

Russ Cox <rsc at swtch.com> wrote:
:As part of this, I have been looking at actual searches, and I've noticed
:that there is a steady stream of people searching for space-separated
:number lists like:
:
:    1 2 3 6 11 23 47 106 235
:    "1 2 3 6 11 23 47 106 235"
:
:My guess is that these searches intend to search for that exact sequence
:(this being the Online Encyclopedia of Integer SEQUENCES and all),
:and that despite the hints and warnings about using comma syntax
:instead, many people don't realize what is going on.
:
:As an experiment, I've changed the rules on the server to turn three
:or more space-separated numbers into a sequence search, as if they'd
:been comma-separated.

For what it's worth, I always want to search for sequences but find
it more convenient to enter the numbers space-separated, so I've long
used a local helper function to put the commas in for me.

I'm sure there's a genuine use-case to search for non-consecutive
sequence entries, and that there should be specific support for this.
Quoting all of the values doesn't feel ideal for that though, better
would be some one-off prefix.

Hugo