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<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>This is a little OT to
start, but Jifty does have a Wifty and this is also the Perl community I'm
currently most closely associated with (unfortunately, I've never actually
physically shaken hands with someone who was a Perl programmer by choice and
enjoyed it.) Okay, enough sob story, the idea...</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT
face=Calibri></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>Last night, I got a first
note on AnnoCPAN for a module I'd all but forgotten I wrote. I'd kind of
looked at AnnoCPAN before, but it's not very easy to get to so I've never taken
very much interest. That event, though, sparked an idea that it would be really
cool if CPAN modules acted like Wiki pages. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT
face=Calibri></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>I am stating this in
terms of CPAN to here since that's where my original thoughts were, but have a
scaled down version of the idea for Jifty below the bullets. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>Here's what I was
thinking:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<UL>
<LI><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>When started, the CPAN
wiki would work essentially the same as search.cpan.org. However, the site
only has to extract the POD from the modules with some additional
notation to record where the code segments belong.</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>On each documentation
page, you can select older revisions, which are, initially, just the other
versions of the modules available on CPAN. You can look at the history and
changes that have been made in the documentation---which would be a hot way of
seeing API changes.</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>A visitor to the CPAN
wiki can correct problems, update, and modify the POD documentation for the
module owner. These would then become additional document revisions of the
module. These would work more or less like regular module updates, but they
would see only the POD and none of the code. Another possibility would be to
show the code, but contrive an editor widget that prevents it from being
modified.</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>If a module is updated,
the system will attempt to diff and patch Wiki-side revisions of the module.
If a hunk fails, a note might be added or something, but the module author's
documentation should always be preferred.</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>A module author (or
anyone really) could click on a link to download a document patch that could
be applied to a specific module or the whole project to make the project
reflect the latest document changes that have been made.</FONT></SPAN></LI></UL>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>The other reason I bring
this up here is that it seems like there's a weird competition between the Wiki
on jifty.org and the manual in the code itself. Rather than make these compete,
a modification to Wifty along these lines could help resolve the issue. I could
even see having a special link for committers allowing them to send the page
straight into the repository. That way the Wiki always has the latest manual and
the package manual always reflect the latest Wiki
changes.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT
face=Calibri></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT face=Calibri>Anyway, that was an off
the wall idea that I had last night and I thought I'd share to see what the list
thought.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT
face=Calibri></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT
face=Calibri>Cheers,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=136520717-17032007><FONT
face=Calibri>Sterling</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri size=2>--</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=left><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri size=2>Andrew Sterling
Hanenkamp</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Calibri size=2>Interaction Developer</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Calibri size=2>Boomer Consulting, Inc.</FONT></DIV>
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