discuss: Is PHP-HOWTO some kind of joke ? (fwd)
Subject:
Re: Is PHP-HOWTO some kind of joke ? (fwd)
From:
Randy Kramer ####@####.####
Date:
12 Nov 2003 19:53:22 -0000
Message-Id: <200311121504.08415.rhkramer@fast.net>
Trying to address your questions explicitly (and briefly):
On Tuesday 11 November 2003 04:57 pm, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> I have no idea what a wiki is, but will it keep the portability that exists
> today, and that is so important?
Yes.
> Will all the HOWTO's be downloadable and
> viewable in various formats, will we still be able to mirror the site,
> etc.?
Yes. But let's consider two cases:
1. Hopefully, from my previous (long) post you recognize that using a wiki
doesn't imply moving the content into the wiki. A wiki can provide good
service to us (the LDP) as a quick free-format (and structured) database of
whatever needs to be kept track of.
2. First, if we do move the content into a wiki, it doesn't have to be all the
content. The WikiText initiative by David Merrill was intended to be one
that authors could use at their option.
Second, WikiText was (would be) converted (automatically) to DocBook, so yes,
the portability, ubiquity, and so forth that you mention would be preserved.
(Note that I don't know the status of the original WikiText to DocBook
converter, and there is no TWiki (or modified TWiki) to DocBook converter.)
I don't recall if I ever actually tried WikiText, but one thing that I'd like
to do differently (but which doesn't have to be done immediately), is to
enable conversions both WikiText to DocBook, and DocBook to WikiText.
IIUC, the WikiText tool could (can?) display DocBook, so somebody
knowledgeable in DocBook could modify text with the WikiText tool using (I
suppose) either DocBook or WikiText markup, and existing DocBook HOWTOs could
be edited in the WikiText tool in that fashion, but I would find that very
cumbersome.
Just for the record, I'd propose a different syntax for the wiki text markup,
probably a variation on the TWiki markup with a change to the heading markup
in particular, for reasons related to my NmTWikiFold macros for use while
editing TWiki documents (offline) in Nedit.
> Will it (bluntly) reduce the wonderful ubiquity the LDP has today?
No.
> What are the downsides?
TWiki is not perfect, so there are some. None jump immediately to mind, so
I'll keep that question in the back of my mind as I (occasionally) chime in
on other threads.
Randy Kramer
