A Note About Wiki
Software
When I first
heard
the
term
wiki or wikiwiki
years
ago, I ignored it thinking it wasn't worth my time (possibly
because of the way it sounds). However, the use of wiki software
has spread like
wildfire
, and it has become an extremely effective
tool to use for collaborating and knowledge management in a
project.
According to Ward Cunningham, the
inventor
of
wiki software, wiki is the "simplest online database that could
possibly work." Wiki is collaborative software that is
essentially
installed in a web server and enables you to edit web pages using
plain text (with various formatting options). Although this might
sound almost too simple, it is a powerful concept.
In a software project, a wiki website serves as
a central dumping ground (so to speak) for content, which
members
of a software team can add or change, collaboratively. This fits
very well with the Agile and XP style of working in an iterative
fashion. For example, online help documentation for a software
being built can be
assembled
using wiki, iteratively and
incrementally, over a period of time (over a two-month release, for
example). In fact, most of the personal
opinions
you see in this
book were
accumulated
using my wiki site over a period of almost a
year. It helped to have quick access to editable web pages for a
quick brain dump when I had an idea.
There are literally hundreds of wiki engines
(software) out there developed in almost every programming language
you could think of. There are wiki engines that work with flat-file
databases and others that work with relational databases. Some wiki
engines provide robust authentication/authorization, whereas others
are for personal use. Your biggest problem will likely be deciding
on which one to use.
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