[pmwiki-users] Cookbook recipes and organization

Radu radu at monicsoft.net
Sat Apr 16 11:49:13 CDT 2005


At 02:51 AM 4/16/2005, Patrick Ogay wrote:
>Sometimes it's very hard to find the adequate recipe.

Which is why we have to work on improving the navigation.

>It is very important that recipes are categorized and that the can be 
>found easily
>by search (keywords in text).

That's tough. One can't always think of all the keywords that other people 
would think about, and even if we spent time adding more and more keywords, 
Pm said that PmWiki won't reinvent the wheel and try to capture the logic 
and heuristics needed to make an effective search engine.

Again, what a wiki can do extremely well is to add naviagetion paths for 
specific purposes. If you have a purpose and don't find a path, add it. 
Either as a bundle or as a trail.

>I miss a bit a better description how to make a good coobook recipe.

So give it a shot at writing a better one. It's also a great way to learn 
how something works :) Just don't delete other people's work; create 
alternative pages and link to them. Then Pm or a vote (or usage and reader 
reports) can decide which version is better, or each version could be fit 
to a different audience.

>It's very important to crosslink the recipes if there are more simple or 
>similar ones.

Exactly!

>There might be cases where it's resonable to merge the recipes - Chapter 1 
>simple solution, Chapter 2 more complex, Chapter 3 variant solution and so 
>on, so that a recipe covers a topic not just one solution.

Naw. The wiki pattern asks for short pages, dead on topic. I'm guilty 
myself many times of breaking that pattern, but I don't suggest the opposite :)

>Nobody will write a recipe when it already exists and the most simple 
>solution is the best!

Actually they would, when the existing recipe doesn't do what they actually 
need. They would either try to improve an existing one and provide it side 
by side with the older one (because it's rude to disregard other people's 
opinions by deleting their work - if they decide that another recipe does 
the same as theirs, they can delete it themselves), or they would start 
something from scratch, using a totally different approach (as is the case 
with the three Forms recipes we are case-studying now :)

>It would be good when sombody  gives a hint, when recipes are obsolete bei 
>pmwiki Version x or a recipe can be done in a easier way. What we 
>basically need is a functionality.

Yes, but different people might need different levels of functionality, or 
be willing to invest their time in different abounts of work needed to 
achieve that functionality. Which is why alternatives are always good.

>  And recipes should be found easyly.

Could not agree more. :)


Cheers,
Radu
(www.monicsoft.net) 




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