Purpose: Discussion about the contents of this site, called [the Tcl'ers Wiki]. Comment about the '''implementation''' of this [Wikit] should go to [Suggestions for Wikit] instead. There is also a [Wiki Gripes] page to comment on the concept of [Wiki] itself. And one where release changes and known bugs are listed, see [Wikit problems]. ---- 24 January 2004 - I added a comment about a dead link in the Sphereal bullet item on the community page, but I somehow managed to mess it up: only the first part of my comment is part of the bullet item. The rest of my comment seems to have been taken as the start of a new paragraph after the ul. I couldn't find a sandbox to help me figure it out, so I'll just appeal to someone more knowledgable than me to fix it. Thanks. rclayton at monmouth.edu ---- I move this comment from the front page: ---- ---- and then I ask the author, whomever s/he is, if they could sketch up a couple of pages to show us using the wiki's own data, what the pages imagined would look like... ---- RD: Looking at the Wiki home page, I don't see it stated in an obvious way that the Wiki is tcl powered! I know about the Wiki project and all that, but for someone cruising through it might not be obvious. I also know that I could edit the home page(maybe not) and add something, but I don't think it's my place to do that. ''13mar03 [jcw] - Good point, fixed... thx!'' LV: I hope to see people add comments here on what they like, don't like, and would like to see come in the future - [Larry Virden] JC: Likewise! I've just set up a few more pages in an attempt to spark discussion and help generate ideas MR: This could definitely use some sort of tutorial for people to get started with; the paradigm is different enough from what people are used to! [Mark Roseman] JC: Your wish (''or was it tclsh?'') is my command, see [Welcome Visitors] LV: Mark, have you looked at the front page's [Formatting Rules]? Are there things there missing? Or are you thinking more along the lines of philosophical approaches to adding text? LV: Should new comments go at the top of pages, or at the bottom? JC: At the bottom, it's what seems to be happening most of the time. ulis,2002-09-29: top or bottom, the point is "what is new?". LV: Suggestion - any new page created should have the constant string "Purpose: " at the top - each page should discuss the purpose of the page up front, to let someone know if ''this is the place''. JC: It's starting to happen, as you can see... :) SB: I tried to test this integrity by searching on the word "suggestions*" on the search page, because I wanted to add some suggestions for wikit. This page came out as the topmost page because somebody has written that suggestions for wikit should go to a different page than this.[Suggestions for Wikit] The page where suggestions should be suggested landed a couple of lines further down. Now because I have written the word suggestions so many times here, this page will probably always win the contest when somebody want to add suggestions for wikit (Oh, no he sait it again.) I do not believe that the purpose section will serve its purpose as references for better places as they will cause the wrong place to show up in place of the right place. When this topic has been discussed and a solution has been found this confusing passage can be deleted as it serves no purpose. ---- 1999 Mar 9 ---- DGP: How about a habit of dating comments as above so that later readers have an idea of the age of contributions? Could be handy on long-lived discussion pages. BSA 23-Mar-1999: How about automatically linking a bulletin board page, like this one, to every page. I would consider it bad protocol to just edit someone's hard crafted page to ask a question or argue a point. LV: 24-Mar-1999: One of the basic philosophies of a Wiki is that all pages are open for editing. While one normally would think it might be considered bad protocol, it not only isn't, but on a Wiki it might be considered bad protocol to NOT edit someone's page when one sees a possible problem, typo, etc. AK, Mar 24, 1999: I usually mark a discussion area on my pages, between 2 horizontal rules, either at the beginning or at the end. If there is no marked area it is implitly located at the end. This should be sufficient for small discussions. If they grow too large I/we can still relocate them to a separate page. DL, 4/4/1999: First of all, glad we all agree on how to format dates :-) Am I missing something - is there NO way to put a URL in a Wiki page and have it appear with a tag that is not the URL or a number in brackets? If I was writing the raw HTML, I would just embed the tag I want to see between and . How do I do it here? LV: April fourth, nineteen hundred and ninety-nine - you are right, there is '''no''' way to do what you want. JC: Cinqieme Avril, mille neuf cents quatre vingt dixneuf - let's keep in mind that wiki is more about content than about style. The primitive text-based markup is just a hack to give everyone a '''little''' markup. And there's a perfect excuse for it, too: if you want good-looking pages, use HTML, put it on the web somewhere and link to it. Personally, I tend to ''like'' the fact that there is only a full URL or a very inconspicuous hint for links. For one, both are clear hints that the link is off-site, whereas all tagged links are on-site. DL: today, can't tell the exact time because sun is behind a cloud - Granted, but I wanted to drop in a really-long URL (CGI script name with LOTS of parameters) and I don't think it enhances readability in the least! To the contrary, a simple phrase explaining what it means is much more helpful. Many URL's are similarly goobledigook. Indeed, the wiki URL's are a good example. It doesn't seem fair that the wiki URL's get to have meaningful tags and everything else has to go through this awkward extra-page maneuver or display goobledigook. JC: same day, not behind a cloud, but under the horizon - now it's my turn to ask "am I missing something?". If you don't want to show long URLs, then why not use the bracket notation? Perhaps like this: ''A DejaNews thread on invoking executables [http://www.dejanews.com/viewthread.xp?AN=462087148&search=thread&recnum=%3c37053665.3EBAA7B9@channelpoint.com%3e%231/1&frpage=getdoc.xp]''. I see your point. The problem is that this Wiki also works in local mode (i.e. Tcl/Tk, no HTML in sight), so web-specific solutions are not optimal. Another argument I could use, is: "other wiki's work the same way". But I won't... :o) DC: Aug 3 99 -- it is many moons later and this wandering web surfer is wondering how the tcl-ers wiki project is doing. Is it just a toy project, or has it demonstrated its practical worth? [RS] 1999-08-04: I like the Wiki very much, and slow by slow will contribute what I have in potentially useful (or fun) Tcl stuff. I think the vitality of the Wiki will come out better if people reading it try to also write something (meaningful, of course). If one routinely checks the [[Recent] page, it's easy to keep up-to-date with the discussion. Maybe the link "Changes" (hmm;-) could be made more conspicuous, e.g. by a clickable logo in the title line -- even if we writers from outside can't do much more than HTML 1.0, inside the Wikit code inline GIFs and whatever can of course be generated. '''Another idea''': the TCP/IP numbers on the Recent page are pretty anonymous. I respect anonymity if desired, but maybe contributors could voluntarily register a string (e.g. their name) for display instead of, or along with, 193.198.144.2 (that's me;-) JC: same day - oh, it's definitely not just a toy, I use it in an increasing number of projects and on my web site, I also intend to switch all my documentation to it (though I'm still postponing this, because so much work is involved). As for the Tcl'ers Wiki: it's nice to see that it's of use to several people and that's more then enough for me to declare it a smash hit :) There are plenty of weak spots, such as supporting embedded GIFs, listing some sort of diffs, and the inability to protect pages (for example as read-only document). Another wish I have, is to one day add change propagation from a central version running as CGI to local copies. '''June 2002''' - [[Recent] is now called [Recent Changes] SB: Is the above an example that the principles of wiki does not really work? One contributor, RS, has a wiki reference to a page that existed at the time he write the text. Later the ''Recent'' page changed to ''Recent Changes'' and somebody contributed this change, not by modifying the original contribution, but adding a line at the end, keeping the square brackets as an archeological testimony of time, so that there are not one, but two references to pages not existing but ready to be edited. If I would have replaced the brackets with double single quotes to make the ''Recent'' italic in both cases and then add the short notice it would be better, or? Does one do things this way because we do not want to fiddle with things other people have ''said''? ---- DKF 2000-01-10: Would it be possible to add a '''' tag to the header for every page so as to make the Wiki appear to be hosted at purl.org despite its tendency to move around (c.f. the C I Host episode) While it would take a bit of work, it would have the advantage of making life much easier for most of the time. It would also make it easer for people to set bookmarks to pages since the browser would refer to bookmarkable URLs instead of ones that are only temporary. JCW: yes, it is possible, and a very good idea. I am currently bogged down by some unplanned work, and tied up at a conference later this month, but I'll get to it - I promise. This change is long overdue. '''June 2002''' - done ---- November 06, 2000 LV: One of the things that has happened in the past year is a trend for adding pages with source code on the site. This is great for reviews and commentary. However, it is less wonderful for the joe average user/amateur programmer who is then uncertain how to go about getting the code from the wiki into some sort of organized manner into tcl for reuse. I wonder if an effort to build some sort of contributed tcl library in a TEA or other format for installation would be something in which people would have an interest? ---- [Bryan Oakley] 11-May-2000: I've got a wiki going internally and am tweaking the code here and there. I've been thinking about supporting embedded images and have some thoughts. On [Jean-Claude Wippler]'s page there is mention of adding support for inline images by simply detecting URLs with a suffix of .jpg, etc. I'm concerned about this, as it would make it difficult to link to an external image. So, maybe some special markup would be useful. But the power of the Wiki is that there is so little markup, and I'd hate to introduce any new magic characters. So, I was thinking of overloading references (things in [[]]'s). For example, maybe the way to distinguish inline images from references to images is to reference them inside <>, as in [[]]. This keeps the "all links are inside [[]]" rule, but lets the user decide whether something should be a link or inlined. Now, if I could only figure out how JC's code worked, I'd try to implement this... ---- September 21, 2001 WHD: I really like a lot of the content of the Wiki, but I think that as it's currently constituted the Tcl'ers Wiki fails on two fronts. The first is that as Wikis go, Wikit is fairly primitive. Take a look at, say, http://emacswiki.org for an example of a UseMod Wiki site. Check out the Recent Changes page, the Preview capabilities, etc., etc., etc. Very nice. To really blow your mind, go look at http://twiki.org for an industrial strength Wiki. I use a UseMod Wiki for my personal notes, and find it much more pleasant to use than Wikit. Unfortunately, it's not in Tcl. But even without updating Wikit, we can make the site easier to use by establishing certain conventions. For example, most Wikis have the notion of "categories". Simply, if you're going to have a page about coding tricks, call the page Category Tricks. Then, instead of including all of the tricks on that page, put each one on its own page. At the bottom of each such page, put a simple, unadorned link to it, i.e., [Category Tricks], and list each such page on the Category Tricks. What's neat about this is it makes searching work for you: by searching on "Category Tricks" you can find all pages in that category whether they are explicitly listed on the Category Tricks page or not. Again, see http://emacswiki.org for an example. -- [William Duquette] [LV] Will, I tried to do something like that with the BOOK pages and Cameron did something similar with the COMPANY pages. Adding suggestions like yours to some sort of Wiki style guide makes a lot of sense. As for more advanced features, I've always wondered by all the wonderfully talented Tcl programmers never got around to enhancing the scripts for this web site. ---- '''EE''': Ack. did you HAVE to do that, WDH? I had a look at TWiki like you suggested, and it blew my mind through overload... NOTE: Despite the fact that the whole purpose of a wiki is to share information, I at least, and possibly others, find a page where every other word is a hyperlink to be pretty intimidating. While our first page isn't as bad as the TWiki first page, I'd still pretty heavy as a complete newcomer. -- actually, now I look again, I see that http://purl.org/tcl/wiki/ (and similar) point to a very simple front page... heh, and far from being too intimidating, I think it could stand to be spruced up a little. ---- After looking at TWiki, I wonder why we don't consider migrating to it. The Tcl'ers Wiki is a great resource, and I've certainly benefited from it. But I'm not one that feels it's necessary to always reinvent the wheel, and I also don't like the 'not invented here' syndrome. Is the Tcl'ers Wiki supposed to be a showcase for Tcl (i.e., built with Tcl only), or as I believe, a knowledge conduit for Tcl? If the latter, why not use the best tools at hand? I don't mean to denigrate our current Wiki, but it pales in comparison to TWiki. Now I know some will say, "Well, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work improving the Tcl Wiki to improve it". But as I continue aging, my free time becomes less and less. Again, why reinvent the wheel. Let's acknowledge where the Wiki has taken us, applaud it, and move on. Just some thoughts... Marty Backe [JCW] - Bravo, Marty, I for one think you make a very valid point. Whenever I look, I continue to be impressed by what some of the other wiki clones have to offer (and appalled by others). Seeing half the planet build alternate wiki's sure looks like a bad use of scarce human resources - especially in the scripting world, where there is so much more to be done. I'll refrain from making comments about your suggestions for now, but hope the space below will get filled by perhaps a list of considerations, concerns, and pro/con items. There are many trade-offs, it'd be nice to try to figure out a good strategy for the future. ---- While twiki is powerful, I think it loses some of the simplicity that the wiki concept was based on. I don't know if that's good or bad; it's just an observation. The revision feature is nice, though. [RS]: And they still have CloseTogetherTitles - I looked around, but didn't have the feeling that our Wiki is worse. [LV] considering the bad rap that the perl based chat software has around here, and the static I got from using persistent URLs because the name _sounds_ like the Perl programming language, I'd sure not want to see us move to a Perl based Wiki unless there was a really, really, really good case for doing so. ''Larry. I would encourage you to take a look at the TWiki referenced above (I don't know if your comment here was based on any investigation of the TWiki). It seems strange to cast aspersions on any Perl software because of some negative experiences with some chat software. [Marty Backe]'' On the other hand, there's no reason why there should only be ONE wiki. If one or more people would like to try a Tcl Twiki, I would encourage them to set one up and announce it. Let the customers decide based on where they spend their time. [MR] I've actually been working on another Tcl based Wiki implementation in my spare time (which should be greatly increasing over the summer). I think one of the things thats gone wrong is that the more complex Wiki implementations become, well, more complex, and that ends up destroying a lot of the simplicity inherent in the concept. In other words, perhaps not the best tool to be designed by technical crowds. :-) [Ro] Simplicity is underrated. The TWiki featuritis gives me the heebee-jeebees. ---- [Marty Backe] I'm (slowly) writing a utility to convert the entire Wiki into a TWiki implementation. What I mean by this, is that each Wiki page will be reformatted per the TWiki rules, and inserted into a new Tcl TWiki (hosted on my site - for demonstration purposes). The point of this excercise will be to let people experience all of the Tcl Wiki's knowledge via the TWiki wiki. I feel it will make a compelling case for switching. I have already installed the TWiki on my site to fulfull all of my personal needs, and have been successful in getting one going at work. The TWiki's strong points: * Complete revision control * Logins (for editing, not reading) * Plugins * Skins * Attachments * Complete html compatibility * Usage statistics * Topic moves/renames * Sophisticated search * Built-in indexes. * etc., -- 15 Apr 2002 ---- [Ro] June 20, 2002 Personally I like this Wiki wayyyyy more than the Twiki. This one is so simple, and if it wasn't, I wouldn't bother contributing. I have enough things to learn and worry about;> Well, the TWiki offers a lot more capability (and I guess complexity), but doesn't force you to use any of it. You can still simply hit the edit button (like the Tcl Wiki), enter your text (like the Tcl Wiki), and click the save button (like the Tcl Wiki). I don't see how this would dissuade people from using it. [Marty Backe] ---- 29Sep02 [Jacob Levy] Feeling stupid, how do I add a new page? I want to write some stuff about safe interpreters, how to load extensions, security policies etc. Can't find any relevant page, so I spent the last half hour trying to figure out how to add a new page.. No idea. You create a page by first adding a link to it in some other page. Wiki displays the link with brackets [Like This] to show that the page doesn't exist. Click on one of the brackets, and Wiki creates the page. If there's no obvious page on which to insert the link, use the [New Pages] page. -- [WHD] ---- [KPV] Three comments on this Wiki, two technical, the other social. First, I'd love for each edited page to show change bars to indicate what has changed. Second, while editing, I'd like, in addition to the Save button, a Preview button. Not a huge need, but I get embarrassed by how many formatting mistakes I tend to make. Third, sometimes I think a more jeopardy-like commented style is appropriate for many pages, i.e. comments at the beginning ala the [Ask, and it shall be given.] page. Most of my wiki pages are short little programs, like [octabug]. For these pages I'd much rather see the comments at the top with the code at the bottom. Otherwise you're forced to scroll past several hundred lines of code to find the comments. 29sep02 [jcw] - First one, I agree with 100%, it really would make this wiki more usable. Second one, I cannot quite grasp: is saving, reviewing the results, and editing again not equally practical? The third one is indeed a social one - maybe this can one day be introduced by having source code in separate pages (with version tracking and even colorization to tempt people to use that mechanism), then the remaining text would be easier to read through again? [sm] 23 Jan 2004: With regards to the "second one" (Preview button suggestion), there's a patch to Wikit to add this functionality described at [Wikit web Preview button]. ---- There are lots of nice examples of source code in the Wiki, but it is not clear what '''license''' the code might be available under. Is there any '''default''' license we can assume (e.g., the code is in the public domain unless specified), or should we assume "all rights reserved by the author"? David S. Cargo (dcargo@marix.com) [RS]: Everything I put on the Wiki is free for all purposes, but no warranty, and I assume that holds for all contributors. ---- 07oct02 To me it appears as if the '''Ask, and it shall be given''' page has gotten too big to edit in the text box that pops up in the form created by my version of Internet Explorer (Version 6, SP1). That means that it cannot be edited by me, and '''might''' mean that it could be accidentally truncated by people trying to edit it. Is there a maximum length to a Wiki page? Can there be a warning when somebody tries to edit a maximum length page? [escargo] 07oct02 [jcw] - Nasty... how far should one go in accommodating buggy (or perhaps just ancient) browsers? One solution would be to auto-generate a page, listing all pages over 30 Kb (32 Kb is the danger zone, AFAIK). That allows us all to stay out of trouble... and anyone to decide to split it up. I'm all in favor of splitting up pages btw - I find wiki pages very awkward '''well''' before that limit. 07oct02 [escargo] Could the wiki be easily enhanced to show the length of the page in bytes (or kilobytes) somewhere? Is there a wiki style for ''invisible text'' that would reside on the input page but not be shown on the HTML page? 26nov02 [jcw] Missed this before - good idea, thx. I'll look into it next round of changes. ---- [Three Cheers for the Wiki] [Who owns the content on this Wiki]? ---- [Category Tcler's Wiki]