[pmwiki-users] RFC: PITS 00701 -- WikiFarm confusion

[DaveG]

TWiki uses the term "webs" in the same manner PmWiki uses "fields". 
Personally I don't see that as any more or less clear.

Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 10:18:23AM +0100, Joachim Durchholz wrote:
>> Farms need special configuration - the directory layout is different. 
> 
> I disagree with this premise -- the directory layout isn't that
> different at all.  Or, perhaps you could describe how the layout is
> different.
> 
>> Given the questions on the mailing list, several recipes won't work on 
>> farms due to these differences.
> 
> The difference is usually just that the recipe needs a couple of
> "$FarmD" paths added.  I've never run into a recipe that had to be 
> substantially reworked because of farms.
> 
>> worse, 
>> recipe writers will tend to omit testing on a farm configuration (I have 
>> to confess that I'm one of these negligent recipe writers myself: lack 
>> of resources, lack of interest.)
> 
> I absolutely don't see this as a source of negligence.  From my 
> perspective, recipe writers aren't obligated to test their 
> modules in every possible configuration... and that's not 
> the "release early/release often" approach anyway.  
> 
> To me, a recipe writer contributes "here's what worked for me", 
> then if someone runs into a problem, whether because of running
> in a farm or any other variation, we report it and improve the
> recipe.  
> 
> Or, by way of analogy, we could be saying
> 
>     "recipe writers will tend to omit testing on a farm configuration"
>     "recipe writers will tend to omit testing under every webserver"
>     "recipe writers will tend to omit testing under every OS/filesystem
>      type"
>     "recipe writers will tend to omit testing under every version of
>      PmWiki"
> 
> I don't want to start implying that any of the above are barriers
> to contributing a recipe (and by the way, this is why it's called
> a "Cookbook" with "recipes").  People contribute what they have, and
> if it needs further refinement then others will pick it up.  
> 
>> I'd really like to see if PmWiki dropped farming in favor of an optional 
>> configuration for shared code/separate data. I.e. install PmWiki in one 
>> place, then have separate data installation directories with index.php 
>> scripts that say something like
>>    <?php
>>    $data_directory = getcwd ();
>>    chdir ('/path/to/shared/pmwiki/installation/');
>>    require_once ('pmwiki.php');
> 
> But this *is* what a farm/field does, except that instead of 
> three lines of PHP we use one:
> 
>     <?php
>        include_once('/path/to/shared/pmwiki/installation/pmwiki.php');
> 
>> [...]
>> Unless I'm doing something with PmWiki farming on a day-by-day basis, I 
>> will forget the details because no other software in the world uses a 
>> farms-and-fields analogy. 
> 
> This is a very reasonable point, so the idea of changing the terms
> has merit.  I'm not sure that "shared code/separate data" works as
> a term that would be any identifiable by people interested in
> having multiple wikis from a single installation, but others can
> say if it would have worked for them.  
> 
> FWIW, I did a little bit of searching yesterday to see what other
> packages use as an equivalent to our "wikifarm" term, but didn't
> find anything.
> 
> Pm
> 
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