[Zope3-dev] Re: Development methodology (Re: [Zope-CMF] Future CMF) (rant)

[Simon Michael]

Hi Jeffrey,

I don't want to become the resident popup wiki zealot.. :) but I'll
respond to a few of your points - interesting account, by the way.

Jeffrey P Shell <jeffrey@cuemedia.com> writes:
> This is link after link after link.  Compare this to
> <http://www.python.org/peps/> - the PEP index is a very simple clean
> structure, one line per PEP, that can be easily scanned.  

+1

> Regarding Jim's statement regarding WikiNames - I'd rather keep track of
> PEP 218 then AddingABuiltInSetObjectType.  But that's just my preference -

I find concise numbers and descriptive titles useful in different
situations. A zwiki page can have both. Zope's id & title come in very
handy here.

> Now - all of these organizational views you're talking about are good and
> valid, but Wiki organization techniques tend to make maintenance tricky.
> You have to remember a funky WikiName in order to be categorized properly.

Not sure why. Which of the wiki categorization schemes are you thinking of?  
WikiBadges ? Page hierarchy ?

> This is something that should be done, but never is.  When I did the
> initial WebDAV WriteLocking project, I decided that I would be a shining
> example of a Wiki maintainer because I HATED every Wiki I came across -
> there were too many links to click on, and most of them were dead ends.
> But, as the project went along, the Wiki and the actual project got
> further and further apart and I eventually fell prey to everything I
> hated.  Having all of that stuff on a web page that you have to click,
> click, click, click, edit to get to, and then do the same thing again to
> update another small page, and another, and another, 
> in a browser TEXTAREA, all takes time.

(Use ftp, webdav, external editor, browser which invokes a real editor on
textareas, etc..)

> With all Wikis, I hear "well, it just needs a good Wiki gardener/editor to
> keep it in check", yet very few people ever step up to that job.  It's not
> exactly easy to do (even with all of the organizational effort Ken
> Manheimer has contributed), and feels like a small responsibility in
> contrast with everything else that one has to do in day.

Yes. To all this, and to Chris's response to me a few messages over, I
point out that

- it's still a hell of a lot easier than the corresponding operations with
most other collaborative publishing systems I can think of. Those may seem
easier because contributing is harder and therefore happens less, and
because they simply don't support collaborative editing so one person does
the maintenance. 

- people do enjoy wiki gardening & editing when they feel like they are
making a difference, they see the results immediately, their work is not
getting lost, and they are working in collaboration with others. Cf what
the Debian project. With most existing wikis (and websites) it feels like
a hopeless task so there's no motivation to begin.

To me, point 2 argues that we should experiment with a single large zope
wiki, to overcome that lack of critical mass and visibility.

-Simon