[svlug] Wiki for documentation

[Ian Kluft]

On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 03:19:13PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> [...] Preference in this area is a
> very individual thing and not necessarily easy to articulate.

Yup.  Just be glad there are a lot of choices.  It's all about choice.

Besides its major features, one reason why I like TWiki which may not apply
to other users is that it's in Perl.  So the plugins are in Perl and can be
written using any module from CPAN.

Those who prefer Python might gravitate toward MoinMoin.  MediaWiki is
in PHP. etc. etc.  The language should matter to you only if you want
to make changes or additions.

> For
> example, in TWiki and some others, I had recurring, annoying problems
> with things becoming WikiWords that you didn't intend to -- and then you
> have to either live with that distraction (hyperlinks that go nowhere,
> on things that weren't intended to be WikiWords [...]

That's actually fairly easily solved in TWiki in a couple ways.

You can prepend a "<nop>" to a word to disable auto-linking.  Or put
text within <verbatim></verbatim> tags to prevent linking or expansions
by any plugins within whole blocks of text.  Depending on which skin/theme
is used, the help features with that info may or may not be so easy to find.

The reason why TWiki does that is a matter of style - it makes it so you
can create a link to a non-existent page.  By following the link, TWiki
offers to create it.  The alternative approach is not to make links for
non-existent pages - it avoids unintended auto-linking but forces new page
creations to be done only with a specific form.  Any given wiki package
has to pick one approach or the other.