Productivity & PKM
Webapps Stack Exchange · 2024-04-14
A case-sensitive search engine for proper nouns and code symbols
需要区分大小写的搜索引擎：专有名词和代码符号搜索太吃亏
At a glance · 30-second read
- WhoWebapps Stack Exchange · 2024-04-14 · 1 upvotes · 2 replies
- The askA case-sensitive search engine for proper nouns and code symbols
- The openingA technical-content index with case-sensitive exact symbol matching, or a proxy front-end over existing engines doing query preprocessing and reranking.
What was actually said
“Searching 'REST' and 'rest' gives the same results; for identifiers, chemical formulas and other case-meaningful strings, engines merge everything.”
— Webapps Stack Exchange · 2024-04-14 · webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/175540/is-there-…
Background and pain
The pain
Devs and researchers searching symbols have been ignored by general engines for years, forced into quote hacks.
A buildable angle
The opening
A technical-content index with case-sensitive exact symbol matching, or a proxy front-end over existing engines doing query preprocessing and reranking.
How to validate it
- Read the whole thread and note the recurring scenarios — repetition is the density of the need.
- Search existing tools around "search engine / case-sensitive" and check which single step they actually cover.
- Put up a one-line landing page, share it back to Webapps Stack Exchange, and see whether anyone asks about pricing.
Existing options
Google 引号Sourcegraph
More threads on this pain
- Why is there no Django/Rails equivalent in the JavaScript world?Hacker News · 2021-10-14
- A fantasy-map view of my blog to replace the chronological feedHacker News · 2026-10-22
- Math-text OCR that selectively keeps or replaces fonts by confidenceStack Exchange · 2026-05-05
- Filenames behave inconsistently across operating systems — casing and illegal charactersObsidian Forum · 2021-08-14