Kevin Trethewey

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To Wiki or not to Wiki

Published Tuesday, May 11, 2004 10:41 AM
I implemented a FlexWiki test site at work recently with a view to suggesting that we use it as a central location for keeping bug tracking information, release notes etc - something to replace those mental and 'post-it' type notes that are made on projects and soon lost or forgotten. Sometimes we make design descisions etc and then six months later when the project gets implemented :-P - we forget why we made them. I thought this might be a nice tool to help with that. I am still undecided myself as to it's usefulness.

These were my bosses comments:

"The place for release notes is with the project - please ensure that is happening. If you wish to store it, additionally, anywhere else thats fine. Similarly, anything to do with a project belongs with the project. If one can go to the trouble of creating/placing stuff in a wiki it means that one could go to the trouble of ensuring that the project had it in the 1st place...if it wasn't there then it indicates a lack of disciipline so regardless of where it sits it won't happen."


Does anyone have any comments they would like to add to this? Do you use Wikis at your place of work? What is your feeling on them?


Any comment appreciated...


(Anyone who is currently thinking Wiki? huh? Should start here)

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by Kevin Trethewey

Comments

# senkwe said on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 11:00 AM

Amazing, I actually agree with a boss (of any kind). I've never really understood the appeal Wikis for bug tracking. I might be biased but I really get the feeling that it's probably more suitable for more haphazard development processes such as Open Source development.

# Armand du Plessis said on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 11:13 AM

Maybe not for bug-tracking, I started a Wiki a when I left my previous company as a sort of handover tool, where people can build a live FAQ for the team. Since then I haven't really used it and I doubt if that one is still in use. I still think Wiki's are very valuable, but as Senkwe said, maybe not for something like bug tracking. The wiki's on c2.com is a nice example of something a wiki might be useful for, see http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CategoryCategory for the full list or http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AntiPatterns etc. There's tons of info there on Refactoring, Patterns etc. Wiki's are good for you :-)

# Victor Vogelpoel said on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:17 PM

I love Wiki (OpenWiki).
I have tried to introduce Wiki as a knowledge and collaboration tool for our Microsoft Group and for use in Projects, but it wasn't picked up at all...
I wouldn't use it for bugtracking though, but more for FAQs, articles and project documentation

# Colin said on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 8:02 PM

We're a small company and we use FlexWiki for out intranet (although it's available on the internet for our offices in JHB and CT) and it works nicely for that. So it's stuff like company policies, dev standards and links to interesting software / articles

I'll agree with Victor that it shouldn't be used for bug tracking. In one of our long running projects it's used for documentation and FAQs

# Scott Dukes said on Friday, October 15, 2004 3:19 PM

I've setup an instance of FlexWiki as a kind of living documentation system at the Corporate were I work. We use if to document anything and everything about the operation, architecture, design, implementation and business processes of our system.

Its rapidly becoming an essential resource. The only problem is getting people to use it (the adoption rate is quite low), which is surprising since it's being used in IT.

FlexWiki also has a lot of features like the ability to send out WikiNewsletters and to expose updates via an RSS feed, plus it has a dynamic side in the form of an OO scripting language (WikiTalk) and a plugin system.

All this and its open source and free. I think you can't go wrong with it. Check out http://flexwiki.com

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