Shlomi Fish writes "Since its inception 10 months ago, the Perl Beginner's Site has been heavily improved and embellished. A lot of content was added, and there's now a new color scheme that is hopefully easier on the eye. Even more importantly, its source code is now present in its own public Subversion repository, which should facilitate contributions.
Not all is well, and the site has some issues. We could use more book reviews and more links. The Wiki is based on an implementation which is a non-portable JavaScript hell and unreliable. (We are planning to switch to TWiki or something else soon). Finally, it is posssible that the site's design is too conventional and unattractive and as such could use a re-structuring of the page. Several people have contributed ideas and links until now, and so We are Waiting for Your Contribution<tm>.
You can help in several ways. Finally, the site is a very good one even now, but could use more publicity. By spreading the word, or linking to it or to one of its pages, you can help making it even more popular.
Let's make Perl-begin even better than it already is!"
There are plenty of modern, modular and excellent Perl based wikis to choose from. If you want a fully featured model look at CGI::Wiki, if you want something simpler then CGI::Kwiki is an excellent choice.
There are plenty of examples of both. I believe the OpenGuides run on CGI::Wiki, and for CGI::Kwiki look at YAPC::Belfast and LondonGeek.
Re:What's wrong with CGI::Kwiki
nicholas on 2004-02-08T13:17:00
And if space is at a real premium, there are plenty of tiny but fully functional perl wikis on the shortest wiki contest
:-) Re:What's wrong with CGI::Kwiki
Shlomi Fish on 2004-02-11T18:48:35
I dislike Kwiki quite a bit. Its newline handling is annoying, and it does not have attachments, or images. Cute and extensible, but still pretty lame.
TWiki, OTOH, is superb in its syntax and power, albeit its code and initial usability may need an improvement.
I was much more impressed with TWiki, which seems nice. MediaWiki (the Wiki behind the Wikipedia) is very powerful, but seems like it would be an overkill for most things.
Another Wiki I've seen in common use is Moin-Moin (which is written in Python). I'll have to try both it and TWiki seriously.
As for CGI::Wiki - don't know - it seems to have a lot of CPAN dependencies which I don't know how well can BerliOS accomodate for. I'll try it too and see if I like it. If it's not as braindead as Kwiki is, I'll use it.
I just want something that will work for me, and enable growing a community. If anyone can set up his own favourite Wiki for it somewhere (with a good connection to the Internet backbone), I'll gladly simply link to it and move the current content there. So far, I believe I was the only person who placed major features in the Wiki, but it could be because of the Chiq-Chaq's mis-behaviours.
Re:What's wrong with CGI::Kwiki
ajt on 2004-02-11T20:43:54
CGI::Kwiki is designed with two goals in mind:
- Simple clean design
- Easily extendible by a simple plug-in architecture
Relative to some of the other Wikis in Perl, it is a very simple clean design, it's not a mass of complex twisted spagetti. Unlike CGI::Wiki, another clean design, Kwiki is simple with minimal dependancies. This makes it one of the easiest to implement.
As it's a simple design it doesn't come with a million features in the box, though it is fair to say it's has aquired more features in a short space of time. Unlike some Wikis it's easy and simple to extend. If you don't like it's default behaviour, you can easily override it. If it doesn't have a feature you want, you can easily add it.
I would never say it's the best wiki, but for being quick, simple and extensible, it is a very balanced package.
I don't know as much about CGI::Wiki, but it seemed to install on a work Linux box with out too much of a complaint. Like Kwiki, it's a clean modern implementation, but it does aim for the feature rich end of the market - so there is more of it. I gather if you want a modern, feature rich wiki, in Perl, it's the one to pick.
There are a few articles over on perl.com which discuss these, and help set them in contex, and as they are by the respective modules authours you can get an insight into their thinking.
At the end of the day it's your time and effort, and you are quite welcome to pick any wiki you want, I'm just suggesting Kwiki because it's quick, clean and simple - it works for me anyway.
