[OSM-talk] State of the NameFinder

[Brian Quinion]

> running again. First one is just performance improvement for old one
> (done by David Earl) and second one is completely new effort (by
> Twain).

The one I've been working on (suggestions for a name for the project
gratefully received off list BTW) is mostly functional.  I was
expecting to open it for testing on the geocoding list some time next
week when it has finished indexing the most recent planet import
however given the timing of this I've started an import of just a uk
extract (which will take 3 to 4 hours to run assuming it all works
first time) so people can have a quick preview.  I'll post a URL to
the list when it is complete.

The main problem with the project, and reason it has been so slow, is
the sheer size of the data.  A complete test cycle for the whole
planet data takes around a week assuming that nothing goes wrong and
working on less than a country sized area is pointless because you
don't get a true indication of performance.

There is still considerable work to be done - the system doesn't just
support diff updates, the code is very messy and in need of
considerable cleaning up and there are a few known bugs with long
strings running out of memory.  I also want to move a lot more of the
core search code into the database to make it less dependant on php.
If people are keen it is possible that some of this work could be
shared with other people.

Cheers,
--
 Brian