[Pmwiki-users] Three Questions

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud
Mon Jan 3 12:30:17 CST 2005


On Sat, Jan 01, 2005 at 05:05:46PM -0800, Theo Armour wrote:
> 
>    As  the  strength of PmWiki develops, larger numbers of administrators
>    will  want  to  commit  significant numbers of web sites to PmWiki. In
>    doing  so  we all would appreciate some assurance that the project has
>    an  ongoing  stability,  predictable  future growth, and collaborative
>    support.

I can't speak to collaborative support -- that's really up to the PmWiki
community.  I can say that I'm continually surprised and pleased by the
many contributions that come in to PmWiki, and I'm committed to keeping
pmwiki.org available as a repository for these contributions.

As for stability, I'll note that PmWiki is now over three years old and 
still works from the same principles I had in mind when I began it
in 2001.  PmWiki's largest "instability" exists in the transition from
1.0 to 2.0 -- however, I expect that 2.0 will be the stable platform
that will be used (and built upon) for the next 2-3 years.

>    1. Career/Personal Prospects
>    Pm's  personal  web site implies that he is looking for a new position
>    or  even a new career. Are Pm currently supporting himself adequately?
>    Will  Pm  be  able to continue development PmWiki for the next year or
>    two?

Actually, Pm's personal web site is way out of date, because I've been
too busy to get around to updating it (and I'm not exactly sure what
to change it to anyway :-).  I haven't been looking for a new position
or career since the summer, and I'm more than adequately supported for
the foreseeable future.

>    Nightmare  scenario.  PmWiki becomes like phpNuke: published by a lone
>    individual developer incessantly bleating for money.

It's been a *long* time since PmWiki had a "lone individual developer".  :-)
One of PmWiki's central themes is to make customizations easy, accessible,
and (to the extent possible) forward-compatible, and from this a 
community of developers just naturally arises.

A side note:  I've never used, seen, or played with phpNuke, so I can't 
speak to any of its technical or development merits.  However, it has always
struck me that "nuke" isn't a word that typically connotes stability,
security, collaboration, or cooperation.  I have trouble imagining someone
explaining to others (i.e., purchasing agents or superiors) that they 
want to purchase or support anything having to do with "nukes".  1/2 :-)

>    2. Predictable Future Growth
> 
>    Is  there a road map for PmWiki? Or perhaps more to the point is there
>    a  list  of  things  that  will  *not* happen to PmWiki (forewarned is
>    forearmed).
>    [Is  one  needed? The PmWiki Philosophy (also core beliefs) is already
>    some distance ahead of what other web apps offer.]

The PmWikiPhilosophy is pretty much the road map.  PmWiki continues to be
oriented around supporting collaborative maintenance of public web pages
(PmWikiPhilosophy #4).  While PmWiki is often being used as the engine to
drive many other applications, web site maintenance continues to be
PmWiki's core focus, with other applications largely relegated to the
cookbook.

In practice, the PmWikiPhilosophy has acted as a sort of "constitution" for
deciding what becomes part of PmWiki's core and what remains in the cookbook.
As always, we generally want a stable core that can easily support a wide
variety of applications.

>    Nightmare  scenarios.  The  work  product of an individual tends to be
>    quirkier  than  the  work product of a group.  PmWiki starts to bloat.
>    PITS  (or  some  other  special  aspect) starts to become Pm's primary
>    topic  of  interest.   Pm's primary interest switches to an altogether
>    different type of application.

I'm very wary of software bloat -- indeed, I frequently do a "line count"
on PmWiki's code distribution just to see how large it's getting (currently
3851 lines of PHP code, including comments).  Web site development
and bulletin-board collaboration applications have been a focus of mine
for over twenty years (including my Ph.D. dissertation) -- I don't forsee
abandoning this interest anytime soon.  :-)  

And it's pretty easy to scan the mailing list archives (or look at
PITS feature suggestions) and see where I've declined to add a feature
because it doesn't fit the PmWikiPhilosophy.

>    3. Collaboration
>    Does  PmWiki  have  the  required  resources?  Is  there  a fly in the
>    ointment? Is there anything else we should know about?
>    If  something  nasty  unforeseen  should  happen,  does  anybody  have
>    maintenance/root access to Pm's server? Or to a public CVS?

PmWiki uses sourceforge.net for its CVS repository, so it's always
available there.  The cookbook scripts are on pmwiki.org (and I make
periodic backups of those), but I can set up a cookbook repository in
the PmWiki project on sourceforge also.  And I can also designate a
couple of additional admins for the project.

>    Answering  questions  such as these is not always easy.  Also an email
>    answer  is likely not to reach the audience it should reach. Therefore
>    would  Pm  consider  adding  a  page to the PmWiki site that begins to
>    respond and to outline ways of addressing these issues?

Yes, but not immediately.  At the moment my priority is to get 2.0
finished and released, after that I'll be in a better position to write
the documents that outline the longer-term strategic plan for PmWiki.

Pm



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