Published in Application Programming Interfaces on Monday, November 28th, 2005
Via John Batelle, this interesting application of the three 'big' search APIs which were recently worked over here on Fiftyfoureleven.
Over at Webmasterbrain.com they have set up a sort of 'blind taste test' between MSN, Yahoo! and Google where you enter a search term or phrase, and it returns the first three results from each engine. You then have the option of choosing (blindly) the most relevant set of results, which they are tabulating here.
It would be really interesting to try something like this, and after having worked up those API examples, it would be fun to put them to use on something other than a site search.
I also feel, like many others have expressed in the comments on Webmasterbrain.com, that the method they are using for voting is lacking. A person can only choose the most relevant set of results, while having the ability to rank 1-2-3 would provide more accurate results than simply 'more relevant'.
<joking>But then, they use Ajax on their example, which is web 2.0, so they needed to keep it simple, and to use big buttons.</joking>
Anyways, I wonder if there would be too much bias running this type of test in a web development environment, as I assume that most of us use Google...
Sitepoint's web devlopment books have helped me out on many occasions both for finding a quick solution to a problem but also to level out my knowlegde in weaker areas (JavaScript, I'm looking at you!). I am recommending the following titles from my bookshelf:
I started freelancing by diving in head first and getting on with it. Many years and a lot of experience later I was still able to take away some gems from this book, and there are plenty I wish I had thought of beforehand. If you are new to freelancing and have a lot of questions (or maybe don't know what questions to ask!) do yourself a favor and at least check out the sample chapters.
The author line-up for this book says it all. 7 excellent developers show you how to get your JavaScript coding up to speed with 7 chapters of great theory, code and examples. Metaprogramming with JavaScript (chapter 5 from Dan Webb) really helped me iron out some things I was missing about JavaScript. That said each chapter really helped me to develop my JavaScript skills beyond simple Ajax calls and html insertion with libs like JQuery.
Like the other books listed here, this provides a great reference for the PHP developer looking to have the right answers from the right people at their fingertips. I tend to pull this off the shelf when I need to delve into new territory and usually find a workable solution to keep development moving. This only needs to happen once and you recoup the price of the book in time saved from having to develop the solution or find the right pattern for getting the job done..
Comments and Feedback