Future of the Wiki
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Folks,
As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago we moved our web site to a new server. The original was on a UNIX platform and a new one is now on a Windows 2K box. Unfortunately, during the move something happened to the Wiki such that it is no longer possible to edit pages. I haven't really gone into this in great detail but I suspect it is something to do with the difference in line feeds in text files between UNIX and Windows platforms. Now, before we spend a great deal of time looking into this and trying to fix it I'd like to ask a couple of questions of you, the Dolphin community. 1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large amount of useful archive material in there but, given the fact that this problem has existed for two weeks now and nobody has been able to edit pages for that length of time, this makes me feel that perhaps the Wiki is no longer the key resource that it was set up to be. So, the first question is, do you think we still need a Wiki resource? Are there any better alternatives perhaps? 2) The Dolphin Wiki is written in Perl and, frankly, given the write-only nature of that language it is a bloomin' nightmare to maintain. If we decide that we still want a Wiki then maybe it would be possible to move to one written in Smalltalk. Does anybody know of SWiki implementation that has been ported to Dolphin? I know very little about SWiki so, if we did manage to set up one on our server, how difficult would it be to move the files from our Wiki format into the SWiki? There, something for you all to think about over the weekend. Best Regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support http://www.object-arts.com --- Are you trying too hard? http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm --- |
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2) the squeakers at georgia tech have a swiki complete with their comanche
web server that is very easy to set up. so if the dolphin requirement is not absolute, it might be worth looking at. donald "Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message news:3e7af41c$[hidden email]... > Folks, > > As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago we moved our web site to a new > server. The original was on a UNIX platform and a new one is now on a > Windows 2K box. Unfortunately, during the move something happened to the > Wiki such that it is no longer possible to edit pages. I haven't really > gone into this in great detail but I suspect it is something to do with the > difference in line feeds in text files between UNIX and Windows platforms. > Now, before we spend a great deal of time looking into this and trying to > fix it I'd like to ask a couple of questions of you, the Dolphin community. > > 1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large > amount of useful archive material in there but, given the fact that this > problem has existed for two weeks now and nobody has been able to edit pages > for that length of time, this makes me feel that perhaps the Wiki is no > longer the key resource that it was set up to be. So, the first question > is, do you think we still need a Wiki resource? Are there any better > alternatives perhaps? > > 2) The Dolphin Wiki is written in Perl and, frankly, given the write-only > nature of that language it is a bloomin' nightmare to maintain. If we > decide that we still want a Wiki then maybe it would be possible to move to > one written in Smalltalk. Does anybody know of SWiki implementation that has > been ported to Dolphin? I know very little about SWiki so, if we did manage > to set up one on our server, how difficult would it be to move the files > from our Wiki format into the SWiki? > > There, something for you all to think about over the weekend. > > Best Regards, > > Andy Bower > Dolphin Support > http://www.object-arts.com > --- > Are you trying too hard? > http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm > --- > > |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:3e7af41c$[hidden email]... > > 1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large > amount of useful archive material in there I'm a ST newbie, and I spent a lot of the last couple of days looking at the material there. It's clear that folks (esp. Bill Schwab) put a lot of effort into it. However, I don't remember seeing anything newer than 2000. > but, given the fact that this > problem has existed for two weeks now and nobody has been able to edit pages > for that length of time I tried to make a minor edit, and when I couldn't just assumed the whole site was pretty much dead. > 2) The Dolphin Wiki is written in Perl and, frankly, given the write-only > nature of that language it is a bloomin' nightmare to maintain. Boy, tell me about it. I've got a Perl site of my own for my family that I'm tempted just to dump. |
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Mark,
> > 1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large > > amount of useful archive material in there > > I'm a ST newbie, and I spent a lot of the last couple of days looking at the > material there. It's clear that folks (esp. Bill Schwab) put a lot of effort > into it. However, I don't remember seeing anything newer than 2000. Just to make it clear.. I'm not talking about dump the contents. They would either remain frozen online (and searchable by DSDN) or, if possible ported over to a Swiki (or whatever else) solution. I suppose, what I'm asking is that, given the relatively few contributions recently, is it worth putting the effort into fixing the current system or creating a new one given that the effort might be better spent elsewhere (like finishing off the D5 docs or advancing D6). Best Regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support http://www.object-arts.com --- Are you trying too hard? http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm --- |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
Andy,
I think it would be useful for summaries and/or things that change slowly. If there were a journal of some sort, then I would get a lot more interested in contributing to it again. Perhaps Donald could comment on whether a Swiki would be less vulnerable to damage by robots - something about buttons vs. links IIRC??? Since you are not talking about shredding what's already on it, I see no reason for mass panic<g> either way. I will second Donald's point that Squeak is probably the likely the path of least resistance to establishing a (S)Wiki. If a Swiki is as easy to set up as advertised, please consider it. Have a good one, Bill -- Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
Andy Bower wrote: There is an implicit connection in here that, if there is a Wiki, that OA is responsible for it. I don't believe that's true, or necessary. An example: even though Cincom does have some sort of wiki up, all the VW action takes place on the UIUC wiki. If Andy and Blair don't feel that they need to have the wiki under their control, I would suggest someone asking Ralph Johnson if UIUC could host the Wiki, as they do for VW, CampSmalltalk and a bunch of others. They run a VW wiki, and I know there's a conversion tool for perl wiki pages out there, because I've used it myself once.Mark,1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large Personally, I'd like to get my hands on D6 as soon as possible. just my 3 centimes... -- -- Joseph Pelrine [ | ] MetaProg GmbH Email: [hidden email] Web: http://www.metaprog.com "If you don't live on the edge, you're taking up too much space" - Doug Robinson -- -- Joseph Pelrine [ | ] MetaProg GmbH Email: [hidden email] Web: http://www.metaprog.com "If you don't live on the edge, you're taking up too much space" - Doug Robinson |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 10:44:22 -0000, "Andy Bower"
<[hidden email]> wrote (with possible editing): >Folks, > >As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago we moved our web site to a new >server. The original was on a UNIX platform and a new one is now on a >Windows 2K box. Unfortunately, during the move something happened to the >Wiki such that it is no longer possible to edit pages. I haven't really >gone into this in great detail but I suspect it is something to do with the >difference in line feeds in text files between UNIX and Windows platforms. >Now, before we spend a great deal of time looking into this and trying to >fix it I'd like to ask a couple of questions of you, the Dolphin community. > >1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large >amount of useful archive material in there but, given the fact that this >problem has existed for two weeks now and nobody has been able to edit pages >for that length of time, this makes me feel that perhaps the Wiki is no >longer the key resource that it was set up to be. So, the first question >is, do you think we still need a Wiki resource? Are there any better >alternatives perhaps? > >2) The Dolphin Wiki is written in Perl and, frankly, given the write-only >nature of that language it is a bloomin' nightmare to maintain. If we >decide that we still want a Wiki then maybe it would be possible to move to >one written in Smalltalk. Does anybody know of SWiki implementation that has >been ported to Dolphin? I know very little about SWiki so, if we did manage >to set up one on our server, how difficult would it be to move the files >from our Wiki format into the SWiki? > >There, something for you all to think about over the weekend. > >Best Regards, > >Andy Bower >Dolphin Support >http://www.object-arts.com >--- Andy, FWIW, when Carl Gundel and I were at Kronos in Mass, we maintained a SWIKI written in Squeak (as mentioned in another message). It was pretty slick. I understand both the SWIKI code and Squeak itself have undergone substantial revisions since then and are pretty solid. You might want to take a look. There's a message group devoted to it: https://mailman.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/pws. -- Larry [hidden email] >Are you trying too hard? >http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm >--- > |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
Checkout http://twiki.org
and a script to convert Dolphin wiki pages to TWiki at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DolphinToTWikiAddOn FWIW we are very happy it. Regards, Pieter Emmelot "Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message news:3e7af41c$[hidden email]... | Folks, | | As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago we moved our web site to a new | server. The original was on a UNIX platform and a new one is now on a | Windows 2K box. Unfortunately, during the move something happened to the | Wiki such that it is no longer possible to edit pages. I haven't really | gone into this in great detail but I suspect it is something to do with the | difference in line feeds in text files between UNIX and Windows platforms. | Now, before we spend a great deal of time looking into this and trying to | fix it I'd like to ask a couple of questions of you, the Dolphin community. | | 1) Do you think the Wiki is still useful? Obviously, there is a large | amount of useful archive material in there but, given the fact that this | problem has existed for two weeks now and nobody has been able to edit pages | for that length of time, this makes me feel that perhaps the Wiki is no | longer the key resource that it was set up to be. So, the first question | is, do you think we still need a Wiki resource? Are there any better | alternatives perhaps? | | 2) The Dolphin Wiki is written in Perl and, frankly, given the write-only | nature of that language it is a bloomin' nightmare to maintain. If we | decide that we still want a Wiki then maybe it would be possible to move to | one written in Smalltalk. Does anybody know of SWiki implementation that has | been ported to Dolphin? I know very little about SWiki so, if we did manage | to set up one on our server, how difficult would it be to move the files | from our Wiki format into the SWiki? | | There, something for you all to think about over the weekend. | | Best Regards, | | Andy Bower | Dolphin Support | http://www.object-arts.com | --- | Are you trying too hard? | http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm | --- | | |
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Andy,
> Checkout http://twiki.org > and a script to convert Dolphin wiki pages to TWiki at > http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DolphinToTWikiAddOn > FWIW we are very happy it. I can't comment on the implementation, but if it lives up to its promise re keeping a change log, then that would avoid my primary concern: lots of work can disappear at random. Have a good one, Bill -- Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. [hidden email] |
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Bill Schwab wrote:
> > Checkout http://twiki.org > [snip] > > I can't comment on the implementation, but if it lives up to its promise re > keeping a change log, then that would avoid my primary concern: lots of work > can disappear at random. Yes, Twiki keeps every version of a page by using the RCS version control system for its storage. Actually not every single change, since it will combine multiple edits by the same user within a given time window into a single version change. I set one up a couple of years ago for an internal twiki. It seems to be a nice "industrial strength" implementation that provides a lot of features "out of the box". One of the things I like is the running difference view that shows the series of diffs between each successively older version. Makes it handy to catch up with changes to a page without re-reading the whole page looking for minor changes. Re. the old wiki losing pages. I think that might have been a real contributing factor to its declining use. There's a real psychological barrier to expending the effort to put things there if the perception is that it'll just be lost. regards, -Bill ------------------------------------------- Bill Dargel [hidden email] Shoshana Technologies 100 West Joy Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 USA |
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Bill,
> Re. the old wiki losing pages. I think that might have been a real contributing > factor to its declining use. There's a real psychological barrier to expending > the effort to put things there if the perception is that it'll just be lost. I can only speak for myself, but it's why I quit editing pages. Have a good one, Bill -- Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by Joseph Pelrine-5
Joseph Pelrine wrote:
>> the effort might be better spent elsewhere (like finishing off the >> D5 docs or advancing D6). > Personally, I'd like to get my hands on D6 as soon as possible. Me, I'd go for the D5 docs. I don't want to sound too grumpy, but in my view, D5 hasn't been fully released yet - it's in very very late beta till the docs appear, and that's a bad thing. Steve |
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Steve Taylor wrote:
> Joseph Pelrine wrote: > >>> the effort might be better spent elsewhere (like finishing off the >>> D5 docs or advancing D6). > >> Personally, I'd like to get my hands on D6 as soon as possible. > > Me, I'd go for the D5 docs. I don't want to sound too grumpy, but in my > view, D5 hasn't been fully released yet - it's in very very late beta > till the docs appear, and that's a bad thing. > I have urged a friend to buy three professional licenses, And now I have to justify my recommendation for D5Pro. First question was: where is the documentation? IMO the availability of source code is not an excuse for the lack of documentation! Grumbling Andreas |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
Folks,
Thanks to all of you responded to my request for comments about the Wiki. From all of these suggestions our preferred solution would be to take Joseph's advice and eventually move the Wiki onto a third party site. However, I don't really see this as being a trivial task, especially if we want to preserve all of the existing content. So, given the fact that we have so many other things to do at the moment, the end result has been that we have fixed up the existing Wiki and moved it onto one of our local servers. This will have the advantage that it will be backed up locally in future so it should not be so easy to lose pages or changes as has happened on occasion in the past. The new URL is: http://www.object-arts.co.uk:8080/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm [Bill, will you need to update DSDN to point to the new location?] Best Regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support http://www.object-arts.com --- Are you trying too hard? http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm --- |
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> http://www.object-arts.co.uk:8080/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm
Ack! 8080 is at best semi-standard port, and many firewalls do not let you access it without configuration. Can you put it on standart port 80? rush -- http://www.templatetamer.com/ |
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Rush,
> 8080 is at best semi-standard port, and many firewalls do not let you access > it without configuration. Can you put it on standart port 80? No, sorry.. that server is on a cable modem link. The choice was between putting it on this local server at port 8080 or on the normal OA server. The advantage of having it on the local server is that we can maintain proper backups which seems essential given that several people have remarked that they no longer feel like contributing to the Wiki because they have, in the past, lost pages. Best Regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support http://www.object-arts.com --- Are you trying too hard? http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm --- |
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> > 8080 is at best semi-standard port, and many firewalls do not let you
> access > > it without configuration. Can you put it on standart port 80? > > No, sorry.. that server is on a cable modem link. It seems that you have some internal Webserver running on Port 80 (got auth dialog). If this Port 80 Server is accessed only by a few people it might be worthwile putting this internal one on another port and the WIKI on 80. Using other ports than the latter for public webservers is really a restriction for a lot of people. Just an idea... Ciao ...Jochen |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
Andy,
> The new URL is: > > http://www.object-arts.co.uk:8080/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm > > [Bill, will you need to update DSDN to point to the new location?] The Wiki caching part of it is "all Ian" :) Are there any other changes that you think would be required, other than the obvious links on web pages? Have a good one, Bill -- Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Riekhof
Jochen,
> It seems that you have some internal Webserver running on Port 80 (got auth > dialog). If this Port 80 Server is accessed only by a few people it might be > worthwile putting this internal one on another port and the WIKI on 80. > Using other ports than the latter for public webservers is really a > restriction for a lot of people. Sorry, my mistake. You are right, port 80 is available so the wiki has been moved onto it. http://www.object-arts.co.uk/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm Best Regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support http://www.object-arts.com --- Are you trying too hard? http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm --- |
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In reply to this post by Andy Bower
Folks,
Correction, the new wiki URL is: http://www.object-arts.co.uk/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm Best Regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support http://www.object-arts.com --- Are you trying too hard? http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm --- |
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