December 1996 € Volume 23 € Number 6

Avenues for Information: A Case Study

By Mohan Sodhi

"Open sesame!"

No, that is not how you open doors to information in cyberspace regardless of what you read about the Internet, or what presidential candidates may imply. In my previous article, I presented a guide for seeking information in cyberspace:

• Seeking help from people, using e-mail, e-mail list servers, and news groups
• Getting regular information or searching electronic newsletters, informed opinions, and newspapers
• Searching documents, programs and other information primarily on the Web and online services

I will now describe my own experience searching for information on a programming paradigm called "constraint programming," not to be confused with the drum, tambourine and rope trick of the "theory of constraints." My employer had arranged a tutorial on constraint programming software produced by a software vendor (ILOG) to introduce me to the concepts and to the software. Subsequently, I attended a conference in Paris where I learned about applications using the vendor's software. But as I am moving towards implementation, I need more information rather than relying solely on the vendor.

I recalled two things: (1) I had seen references to a news group, comp.constraints, in some postings on the OR news group, sci.op-research, and (2) when I used to post a list of "frequently asked questions" (FAQ) on sci.op-research, Michael Jampel had requested me to list comp.constraints as well in the list of news groups. So this was my starting point.


Seeking help from people
E-mail: I e-mailed a brief message to Jempel describing my situation and requesting information on ILOG and constraint programming. His reply was quite useful; he gave me information about the company and provided the name of a contact.

E-mail list servers: (a) Looking up the list of e-mail list servers (you can do this by sending the e-mail message "get emaillst.txt" to [email protected]