Elasticsearch should be the bootstrap of search imo. Afaics the only interesting bit in this project is the reindex technique. The rest is just trying to make a nice rails idiomatic client library (perhaps for ruby too) around search querying. For a python idiomatic client lib comparison, see mozilla services http://elasticutils.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
Training searches from conversions (self-improving searches) is kinda interesting. Elasticsearch is an amazing product but it can be hard to configure, especially for beginners.
