in reply to Re^4: Writing a database lookup tool
in thread Writing a database lookup tool
"I used the "offline" concept to clarify for you that the data would not live "on a remote server over a slow network".
However:
"Re: Solr, it has a lot of the features I would want (optimized for text search, regex and sounds-like filters, hit highligting), but it looks like it's designed to run on a server, not offline."
So you're assuming that Solr can't run on a laptop for some reason? Again, your offline concept is wrong, in the way you use it and what you seem to think it means.
"My questions are not vague or meaningless."
Your questions are very vague, e.g. (emphasis added by me)
- "What sort of performance can I expect from whatever database engine I would end up using?" - No database platform specified.
- "How much time would it take to import 8GB of text into a database format and how much space would it take up?"
- "Most importantly, how much time would a lookup take on a run-of-the-mill laptop?" - No specification at all.
- "Could the whole app be packaged up into a reasonably-sized .exe file with PAR::Packer?" - Subjective
- "How much time would it take for those 1000 hits to be found if the database design and implementation is not particulary well optimized?" - Which database, how poorly optimized?
At no point did I say they were meaningless**. IMHO a "reasonable" person would suggest you actually spend some time trying some of this out using different databases on the system you intend to run it on. I suggested this here. How long it would take you to deveop such a system depends on you, how much you understand about the issues involved, how much time you're prepaired to spend. Given that you've looked at Solr and think it can't run on your laptop, investigations aren't going well so far. I wouldn't like to speculate how long it'll take you to develop a working system.
Update: ** Ah, perhaps you interpreted me saying "..essentially meaningless it would be to give you a result of a query running on X million records within my tuned environment for a database platform you'll never use." as somehow being a slight against you or your questions. If so please re read and understand that it would be meaningless for me to provide an arbitrary metric.