Re: [Gnumed-devel] GnuMed documentation (Was: GNUmed 1.1.9 Maintenance Release)

[Sebastian Hilbert]

On Friday, January 13, 2012 04:49:21 PM Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 03:02:40PM +0100, Sebastian Hilbert wrote:
> > Hum ? I know that in the tarball there are exactly the same number of
> > images as are in the Wiki pages itself. The only nitpick here is that on
> > some pages I have three Download buttons (images) which are connected to
> > different links. Each download button will have a different name in the
> > output. But this is due to the export script not having the feature (or
> > idea) to eliminate duplicates. this is total overkill.
> 
> ACK.
> 
> > Wiki are common practice nowadays. Can you suggest a replacement platform
> > for Wikimedia's Wikipedia other then a Wiki ?
> 
> I'd maintain XML in Git and export to whatever format is needed.  You
> will say that it is not friendly to newcomers.  I would in return ask
> how many newcomers did any edit in the last year?  And finally you would
> say this does not matter and would stick to the Wiki - and that's fine
> for me.
> 
> I have no experience with other Wikis only with WikiMedia but only with
> the exact usage of a documentation Wiki and no exports to other formats.
> I simply do not believe in the Theory that Wikis per se are better
> maintained and more up to date because it is simple.  I just say there
> are examples where this works and this is great.  Other examples don't.
> 
> My missing trust in the chances to update a Wiki endet up in autogenerated
> tasks pages for Debian Med (totally different application) and the Blends
> documentation is maintained in the principle I mentioned above (OK, it is
> not XML but SGML and not Git but Svn - both is historically caused.)  I'm
> happy with patches of newcomers.  The publication process is automated
> (`make publish`) and the release proces as well (`make dist`).
> 
There is one benefit of a Wiki. You can edit from anywhere without having your 
SGML toolchain and svn tree with you.

Wikis are harder to keep clean. One has to make a choice in life.

Regards,
Sebastian