Sivakatirswami wrote:
We see frequent mention of wikis here... if you haven't tried it or
just getting started with wiki's PMWiki is absolutely fabulous in
terms of flexibility, easy of admin and online support. 100% PHP but
you don't have to know a drop of PHP to get it up and running.
<start grumpy old man response>
I don't doubt that PMWiki is an excellent tool for creating a Wiki.
What I doubt is whether a Wiki is an excellent tool for documenting
anything. I've seen some good wikis - but I've seen far, far more of
them that I thought were poor.
For most topics or areas to document or describe, the most important
thing to get right is the organization of the data. I've seen a number
of wikis that contained huge quantities of information - but I could
never find what I wanted without a lot of effort. Wikis make it easy to
add new categories - so it's easy to have too many categories, or
individual articles mis-categorized.
If the categorization is obvious (e.g. alphabetical, or a hierarchical
class library API, or ....) then a wiki should work well. Otherwise, it
needs a good "owner" to keep it in shape, move new items if needed, and
provide the structure and consistency that makes it be a useful
repository for information rather than a "write-only" heap.
(Think of our many discussions on Rev's documentation - having the info
in there is not helpful if you can't find it easily when you want it).
<end of Sunday morning grump - time for a coffee :-) >
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Alex Tweedly http://www.tweedly.net
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