[pmwiki-users] POLL: Why PmWiki over Other CMS?

[Kathryn Andersen]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 07:46:09AM -0400, Ben Wilson wrote:
> I just wanted to poll the Community about your deciding factors for
> choosing PmWiki over other wikis/CMS tools. I personally chose PmWiki
> because of its flat-file focus and customizability. It seems that the
> greatest strength of PmWiki is its flexible nature, augmented by
> dynamic content generation. But, what do you think?

When I was initially evaluating wikis, the following features
of PmWiki stood out for me:

- flat file data
  - easily backed up
  - easily mirrored
  - not dependent on a third-party database
- good documentation
- documentation included in the installation
- easy to install, only needs PHP
- the *easiest* wiki to upgrade of any that I've seen
  - configuration and plugins don't require editing the core
- many plugins, most of them easy to install
- easy configuration
- Categories were almost as easy as MediaWiki
- namespaces (Groups)
- many skins available

Now that I've been using it a while, I would add
- very responsive developer
- good user community (with much kudos to PM for helping keep things
  civilized)
- the power of pagelists
- the ease of making skins
- the ease of writing plugins
- and the funky new features in 2.2 (especially page-text-variables)

I like the way that PmWiki can be configured in different ways: that it
can be used as a straight Wiki, as a personal organizer, as a content
management system, and even as a blogging tool.

The PmWiki Philosophy
(http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/PmWikiPhilosophy)
is also very reassuring, especially #3, because creeping featuritis can
turn good software into bloated monsters.  It's also reassuring simply
because it shows that PM is thinking about *why* things should be done
to PmWiki, not just doing things because "it seemed like a good idea at
the time".

I remember one window manager that I loved, because it had all these
nifty features, but I gave up on using it because the creator of it just
kept on changing things all the time and I got sick of having to rework
my setup every time a new version was released.

PM, on the other hand, is very good at minimizing disruption of existing
setups.

Kathryn Andersen
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