I spent four or five hours tonight reading about various Wiki software and playing around with an installation of DokuWiki. As I’ve never developed a Wiki before, the first thing I did was pose the question to some of my forum pals and then start following the links.

MediaWiki, of course, is probably the most well-known and popular Wiki engine as it powers the ridiculously popular Wikipedia. You may have noticed that Google’s been in love with Wikipedia for some time now.

But, there are often other gems that offer different functionality besides the most popular platform. And, besides, a potential client said that he didn’t want to go with MediaWiki…so, that gave me incentive to investigate. After talking and reading, I’ve settled for the time being at least, with DokuWiki. There seems to be a consensus that it’s coded well…and, thus far, it seems pretty cool.

It’s definitely well-documented, and, I like the extensive security info that they offer. They also appear to do a great job providing a summary of their syntax. If you get creative with their coding, you can even produce some unique results that don’t seem totally Wiki-like.

But, as I was saying…I just really like the depth of the software’s documentation. Their manual is impressively constructed.

That’s it for now. Happy wiki-ing.

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added Nov. 27, 2008

A colleague today recommended Twiki (Twiki sandbox).

A list of 30 + Wiki engines.

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added Nov. 28, 2008

I set-up a Wiki on this domain using the DokuWiki software. I’ve spent about six hours or so between reading documentation and then going back and posting stuff. Lolsies, I’ve actually started getting a cool little wiki together that’s a wiki about learning how to wiki.

Now, if you’re thinking that I’m definitely overusing the term wiki. I’d have to agree.

Wiki, wiki, wiki, wiki, wiki!!!

WebGlad

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