>There is a little flaw in your demonstration. You have assumed when a
> client searches for "a b c d", this means "a" & "b" & "c" & "d" but it is
> wrong. Speaking about probability, a.*b.*c.*d is probably what the user
> wants the most. For example, if a user searches for an album, he won't
> spend time to write the album title in the reverse order. That's why most
> of the time, "a b c d" means "a.*b.*c.*d" (when it is not exactly "a b c
> d"). Any user having enough experience in any search engine (even google)
> knows he should not use some simple words like "a", "the", "is" and to
> search for "heaven is a place on earth", he will search "heaven place
> earth" (and it is even shorter to write :) ).

I can with equal validity state that "a b c d is probably what the user
wants the
most": the more exacting the default searches are, the more different
searches an average/median user must use to attempt to find what he wants.

I don't have any evidence to back this claim up, but you didn't present any
either.

I agree, I just based what I said on what I have seen from the usage made by friends who have no computer science knowledge, whom we simply call "basic user".

>optimizing something is good but optimizing something which is limited is
>IMHO
>just a waste of time.

Regular expressions are limited too, just differently.

Yes, their limits just are less close.

>Moreover, finding something is good, being able to send
>it to the client requesting it in a reasonable period of time is better.
> Not everybody has access to a 100Mb connection, most of the users have
> ADSL or cable connections and if they take 5-10 minutes to send/receive
> their reply, I think they won't use this P2P network.

To what is this a response? Has anyone disagreed that "finding something is
good"?

it is not a response to anything, it is just a simple reflexion on our reality (or everyday life).

Eric