[pmwiki-users] pmwiki-users Digest, Vol 9, Issue 97

[The Editor]

Thought I would chime in on the subject of Farms as a new user to
PmWiki , who is primarily a writer and not a programmer (though I have
an interest in coding).

First, I was instantly drawn to PmWiki when I stumbled on to it by
accident because of it's use of recipe/cookbook and field/farm
analogies.  I was looking for something simple and easy to install,
configure, and maintain--that was flexible enough to do about whatever
I wanted.  The use of such analogies (combined with the descriptions
of PmWiki's features) convinced me it was designed with endusers like
me in mind.  Switching to terminology like shared code/separate data
would have greatly weakened my initial impression PmWiki was user
friendly, and perhaps even kinda fun.

Rather, I would like to see us build on the analogy in regards to
terminology.  How's this for a brainstorm:  Why not refer to the whole
approach, as we currently do, as a Farm approach to PmWiki. It's a
farm installation. A farm configuration. The farm option.  etc.
Second, continue to refer to the separate fields as fields.  It works
fine, and no sense changing things more than necessary and confusing
people.  But third, I would suggest we begin referring to the base
location as the "Barn" (recognizing of course that the barn could have
it's own home field).  People instinctively recognize a barn is used
to house various tools (recipes), a tractor (pmwiki), and tractor
implements (the scripts), etc.  And the Field in the barn (if you have
one), just happens to be the field where the barn is located.  We
could just call it the Barn Field, and it's instantly clear.

I think the confusion in terminology is that we are using the word
Farm to refer to both the whole installation and to the local field
(what I would call the Barn Field).  Adding the new term adds some
more color to the analogy, helps a new user better conceptualize what
is going on, and is a bit more parallel to the cookbook/recipe
approach.

I have some other thoughts on farming I'll post in a bit.  But need to
go get some lunch first.  Thanks to everyone for making PmWiki such a
great piece of software. I should have my first site up within the
week.

Caveman