-Original Message-
From: Amir E. Aharoni [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 1:54 PM
[...]
It's funny - i was the first one who proposed the wiki idea and i
didn't think that it will go so far (1000$$$). If you ask me, this
wiki should be done ASAP in Media-Wiki. Reusing current Perl wikis
(Australian, whatever) is even better.
I certainly agree. However, someone has to take the initiative to actually
start using (http://perl.net.au/wiki/Perl_6), and to post links back here
for others to follow up on. Will that person be you? :-) I'm all for using
that wiki to compile important Perl 6 content now, so that there will be
plenty of good material on hand for the (Perl 6)**2 Wiki.
I'm long on enthusiasm, but very low on tuits at the moment (hence the
prize), but if someone ports the contents of
(www.athenalab.com/Perl_6_Users_FAQ.htm) to the above wiki, I'll replace the
above page with a Perl 6 Users FAQ has become absorbed by a much better
Perl 6 wiki link.
Perl6 currently needs
documentation, community and advocacy - not a Yet Another Content
Management System written in itself.
I don't see these as mutually exclusive. Especially since other people
clearly regard such a prospective Perl 6 system as a powerful form of
advocacy, as an important piece of documentation for the Perl 6 Cookbook,
and as a community-building venture.
Also, it's really up to others who do the actual work to decide what they
find interesting or important enough to work on, given their interests and
motivation. It's not for me to dictate to others what they should or
shouldn't be doing. Perl 6 development has really taken off over the last
year or so in part because people were encouraged to pursue -Ofun, rather
than being told what they should be doing. Of all the crazy things, whoever
thought that what Perl 6 really needed was a pathetically primitive
prototype in some arcane language like Haskell? :-)
It is unlikely that it will
become Perl6's killer app with such a strong competition.
Near-to-medium term, you're almost certainly correct. The long term is a
different matter. But I think this is a tangential issue.
There are more important {near-to-medium term and non-competitive} roles
(pun intended) that the (Perl 6)**2 Wiki could play. (1) It can serve as a
wide-participation eat your own dog food prototype. (2) As new Perl 6
features become available, refactoring the prototype into a more pluggable
architecture (among other things) could provide many opportunities for
trying out new Perl 6 capabilities (including the use of production Perl 5
modules). (3) As the primary Perl 6 wiki, we have the option of adding
features that might be particularly useful for (say) generating Perl {user,
release, module, distribution, and so on} documentation without going
through the usual {POD editing, svn updating, HTML generating} processes,
resulting in {wider participation and greater productivity}, relative to
existing systems. (4) Eventually, this can serve as the nucleus of a
generalized Wiki-counterpart and analog of {CPAN, Perl Monks sorts of
forums, developer blogs, and so on}. Parts of it might eventually
incrementally morph into the first viable semantic web.
And again, the most important factor for many people is -Ofun. I've even
resigned myself to it. :-)
Best regards,
Conrad Schneiker
www.athenalab.com/Perl_6_Users_FAQ.htm
www.AthenaLab.com (Nano-electron-beam and micro-neutron-beam technology.)
