[pmwiki-users] Fwd: RFC PmWiki Tips and Tricks

Ben Wilson dausha at gmail.com
Tue Sep 26 11:01:08 CDT 2006


On 9/26/06, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 10:21:23AM -0500, Ben Wilson wrote:
> > A rational for this bifurcation could be that scripted modules are
> > placed in the /cookbook directory. So, keeping those in the Cookbook
> > group is somewhat intuitive. Putting the configuration tips and tricks
> > in a separate group indicates there is no need to download any script.

[snip]

> I suspect the existence of a script is not an important criterion
> for most searches.  As such, I think the organization needs
> to be based on what will help people find the information most
> quickly and usefully, and not whether the solution happens to
> involve the use of an extra script.

With the advent of pagelist and searching, it is possible to provide
the information just as quickly if all information is in one group or
several. So, speed and efficiency of finding the solution is not
necessarily based on its group. I routinely look for a recipe I once
saw by a search query. So, it does not follow that spliting solutions
in two groups is any less efficient in finding a given solution than
keeping the solutions in one group.

The question becomes "how is organization by one group more
efficient?" The ready answer is either via pagelist, or wikitrail.
Both methods exceeded Group boundaries quite some time ago. The only
thing that could make things more efficient is if there were a
search-wiki trail (i.e. a wikitrail based on a dynamic search).
However, I think that may move things a bit too far as we essentially
already have the searchlist, which seems quite efficient.

The other question is the value of organizational inertia. We've used
Cookbook group for solutions for a very long time. Those of us who are
familiar with the system know to go to Cookbook. However, for a novice
user looking to get his feet wet, which is better? I submit that I've
been in PmWiki too long to be able to answer that, which is why I
opted to ask the more conservative "what is the benefit" question. If
there is no compelling benefit, then there's no need, which is (I
think) in keeping with PmWiki Philosophy #3 (specific need over
general want).

-- 
Ben Wilson
"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man." HDT




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