discuss: Why MoinMoin?
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Why MoinMoin?
From:
James Hess ####@####.####
Date:
20 May 2009 02:59:37 +0100
Message-Id: <6eb799ab0905191854q26e092dfx98e55ddd76b860a2@mail.gmail.com>
Bill Traynor:
[snip]
>Why was MoinMoin chosen for the tldp wiki? Hasn't Mediawiki
>essentially become the wiki software leader? Also, I know that the
>Wikimedia Foundation has a usability project underway to make wiki
>editing of mediawiki pages much more user friendly, which I would
>think would benefit a project like tldp greatly.
[snip]
MoinMoin was a workable solution, and seems to be a good one, at least
as good as a choice of MediaWiki. You're _really_ begging the
question.
I also thought it was a little sneaky to ask us "Why LDP's still using
MoinMoin" as if it was implied, understood, or well-accepted that
Mediawiki was somehow superior. "Windows is more popular, so LDP
should make sure to run Windows Vista + Apache, or Server 2008 and
IIS on all the web servers...".
I'm not convinced that Mediawiki is the "wiki software leader", or
that being the leader means that their software best meets the
requirements of the LDP. Please explain why you think this would be.
I'm also not convinced MoinMoin was a poor choice that the LDP ought
to revisit or that there's any compelling reason for changing to
Mediawiki...
A usability project is a good thing, but until the project is
completed, and its results are stable, well-documented, and
well-understood, it doesn't mean much.
Would you switch your mail server from Postfix to Exchange, because
MS announced some uber cool feature X coming in some future major
release of the product?
In my view speculation of future enhancements an alternate software
program might make is no reason to immediately switch to that software
program.
Sean:
[snip]
>> Does this mean that TLDP is essentially migrating away from traditional
>> 1980's style HTML flat files and advancing to mid-90's wiki tech?
[snip]
There is nothing inherently wrong with HTML flat files, although they
are a lot harder for authors to maintain than structured files.
By the way, structured flat files pre-dated the 80s.
LaTeX and friends are frequently used also, and great technologies.
The decade in which a technology first became popular is irrelevent;
if it can help you, and does it the most convenient, least-cumbersome
way, and meets all your documentation needs (like maintainability and
maybe interoperability), then do it.
--
-Mysid
