this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Why is the search functionality on sites like Reddit, really low quality? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by pexavc@lemmy.world to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
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I wanted to ask a technical questions, maybe high level, on why sites may have bad search and what the bottlenecks might be in almost never updating such in years. Was there something in the original development of the stack that is affecting progressive updates around the feature, how should one approach "Search" then in this case? Or is it simply a management issue.

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[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 11 points 1 year ago

I know it's cool to shit on Reddit (and I dislike them too!), but this really is a technical issue. Stuff being in a database doesn't mean that you can magically do good searching without anything. Off the shelf systems exist for off the shelf products, problem with those solutions is that once you differ significantly from the target type of project, it costs more and more to integrate. And since Reddit is pretty unique (if you also account for its scale), it doesn't make financial sense to make a product that's optimized for Reddit.