Hacker News Reader

For a programming search engine, the official docs of languages should get special treatment. Google often surfaces outdated versions of the documentation, but they're usually at the top. If you want to improve on this, you should (a) rank official docs the highest, (b) give extra weight to docs.python.org if the query contains "python", (c) merge the same page for different versions and add a version picker.

View on HN

I have long wanted a programming search engine where I could pick something like "Python" and "version 3.9" and always get the right thing. Similarly there is documentation for software packages that are similarly versioned (e.g. "react-router 4" vs "react-router 5")

If I know I want something from docs rather than SO, I open devdocs.io instead of a search engine. It's not a perfect solution but maybe it helps you as well.

All 3 of these are on my list (plus understanding page sections, which would improve the results for things like the Python docs where there’s a bunch of topics on a single page); I just haven’t gotten round to writing the code yet.

That exciting. I see your project as a financial index; but for search.

I would use it with the addition mentioned above. Add a newsletter subscription box maybe ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com