Feature:90028

90028 OPEN It looks like the ISFDB Directory hasn't been updated in quite some time. The copyright date is 2005. It would help if the Directory could be updated with the latest version of the Author list every night or so. Ahasuerus 14:03, 26 May 2006 (CDT)

There are those of us who would like to see the directory go away, but there are others who who like to see it live on. Since I'm trying to get rid of the static pages, I don't want to have to build a directory on a regular basis and upload it. I'll be looking at constructing a dynamic directory, and we can use this entry to track that feature. Alvonruff 15:05, 28 May 2006 (CDT)

Well, static pages are usually created to avoid "computationally intensive" database queries, as you call them elsewhere. How about a compromise? Build a static page with URLs for "A", "B", etc. Then link these URLs to real time queries for Author records whose last name starts with that letter. You can make the URLs as granual as you want if it takes too long to process a query on, say, "B" or "S" (traditionally the worst offenders).

The only problem with this approach that I can think of would be adding an algorithm that would identify "last names" and then building an index on it. Something like "strip off all known suffixes like 'Jr.' from the end of the canonical name, then take the last space delimited piece of the name"? Ahasuerus 16:25, 28 May 2006 (CDT)