SPUG:YAPC Wiki Site

William Julien moonbeam at catmanor.com
Sun Jun 15 03:38:45 CDT 2003


<zap>
>
>So, I'd prefer that we do *nog* explore Wiki for a *replacement* of
>this discussion. But if Wiki could be a *mirror* of this by using a
>SMTP or NNTP gateway, that would be better -- Add folks who perfer
>Wiki, without cutting off folks who don't. (That seems to be how many
>of the perl.org groups are. I read 'em with NNTP, but many folks read
>them with HTTP.)
>
>End rant,
>Michael Wolf

I would agree that a wiki would not be a replacement of this mail
list but I think would be a valuable enhacement. A person with
a particular problem can post their code to the wiki and foster
colabrative enhancement. Modern wiki's have full revision control and
very powerful search capabilities. We use a wiki at work to provide
a place for everyone to put all their bits of postit notes, scraps of
email, unwritten knowlege, tips, techniques, diagrams, and howtos.

The original wiki was a product of an extreme programming project by Ward
Cunnimham of www.c2.com. I tried the code available from c2.com and I
found it very limiting. Instead I used a "patched" version of "UseModWiki"
called NeuroWiki. See http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?PatchedScripts

I have setup my domain to be a wiki. See http:/www.catmanor.com
The page is dedicated to poems by T. S. Eloit. If you have any
poetry of you own, I encourage you to contribute.

Wiki's are not necesssary linear like smtp or threaded like nntp. Any
page can reference any other page. In usemod, a click on the page name
will provide a reference to the page and all other pages that reference it.

>
>P.S. I know my reply wasn't in direct response to the original post.
>It just triggered somethin for me. For instance, I do *NOT* read the
>newly created MOSS Wiki, but I *do* read email from the list. Call me
>lazy, but it cuts me out from a portion of what's going on in that
>community. Perhaps the net gain is better than the net loss, a
>decision all communities or groups must make, but at some basic level,
>I don't get Wiki. It seems to require that all posters be mini
>WYSIWYG-webmasters-in-training and all that readers must continually
>re-read content to discover what's changed. All seems like a waste of
>human time for what computers do better.

On one click on "recent changes" you can get a list of all the wiki
pages that have been modified. You can do revision comparisons.

>
>P.P.S. I guess I've asked for it indirectly, so I'll ask dirctly --
>Could someone clue me in on why Wiki is better than listserv, email
>lists, news, SMTP, and NNTP, all of which are directed to my favorite,
>familiar news/email readers (which I won't share the name of, because
>it's not relevant to my argument -- lots of folks could substitute
>their favorite news/email reader and make the same point).
>
>An inquiring (underinformed) mind wants to know....

I think the value is that of cooperative development with full version
control. I can post some code and anyone can enhance it. Unlike mail
and usenet, the lastest version is in one place. It is easy to perform
diffs of previous versions to see what has changed. Try that with nntp.

>
>Yes, I have to admit my ignorance in order to satisfy my curiosity!

Since the original wiki developed by Ward Cunninham, there have been
over 200 versions implemented in many languages. It is a big place
to explore and learn. 

   William Julien           _,'|            _.-''``-...___..--';
moonbeam at catmanor.com      /, \'.      _..-' ,      ,--...--'''
 vi is my shepherd;       < \   .`--'''      `     /| 
 i shall not font.         `-,;'              ;   ; ;  
                     __...--''     __...--_..'  .;.'  
                    (,__....----'''      (,..--''     
perl -e '( $ ,, $ ")=("a".."z")[0,-1]; print "sh", $ ","m\n";;";;"'

>
>-- 
>Michael R. Wolf
>    All mammals learn by playing!
>        MichaelRunningWolf at att.net
>
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