[ANN] Instiki 0.10.0 - On The Rails

ruby-talk
1

<fanfares/>

Ladies and gentlemen!

It is a great pleasure for me to announce the release of version 0.10.0 of Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby world.

Instiki is a Wiki Clone <http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiClones> that’s so easy to set up and so pretty to look at, you’ll be wondering whether this is a real wiki at all.

It is also an early ancestor of Rails. In this version Instiki becomes a real Rails application.
Besides, we have a new markup option that mixes Textile and Markdown on the same pages.
Besides, there is an automated test suite for the controllers layer, and generally a lot more tests.

Other than that, there are dozens of bug fixes and usability tweaks, but no major new features. Sadly, the file uploads didn't make it to production yet.
There may be new bugs, too - there is A LOT of new and changed code in there.

The released files are available at http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=186
Online documentation is at http://instiki.org
Source code and bug tracker are at http://dev.instiki.org
A gem should be available on RubyForge gem server shortly.

Huge thanks to:
* Dennis Mertz and other contributors for tickets and patches
* David Heinemeier Hansson for both Instiki and Rails
* Why the Lucky Stiff for RedCloth 3.0.3
* Matz for the elegant and expressive language
* Ruby community for its existence

<fanfares/>

CHANGELOG
* 0.10.0:
Ported to ActionPack
RedCloth 3.0.3
BlueCloth is phased out, Markdown is rendered by RedCloth
Mix markup option understands both Textile and Markdown on the same page
Instiki can serve static content (such as HTML or plain-text files) from ./public
directory
Much friendlier admin interface
Wiki link syntax doesn't conflict with Textile hyperlink syntax. Therefore
"textile link":LinkToSomePlace will not look insane.
RSS feeds accept query parameters, sush as
http://localhost:2500/wiki/rss_with_headlines?start=2005-02-18&end=2005-02-19&limit=10
RSS feed with page contents for a password-protected web behaves as follows:
if the web is published, RSS feed links to the published version of the web
otherwise, the feed is not available
Madeleine will check every hour if there are new commands in the log or 24 hours have
passed since last snapshot, and take snapshot if either of these conditions is true
Madeleine will also not log read-only operations, resulting in a better performance
Wiki extracts (to HTML and plain text) will leave only the last extract file in ./storage
Wiki search handles multibyte (UTF-8) characters correctly
Local hyperlinks in published pages point to published pages [Michael DeHaan]
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused all past revisions of a page to be "forgotten" on
restart
Fixed parsing of URIs with a port number (http://someplace.org:8080)
Instiki will not fork itself on a *nix, unless explicitly asked to
Instiki can bind to IPs other than 127.0.0.1 (command-line option)
Revisions that do not change anything on the page are rejected
Automated tests for all controller actions
category: lines are presented as links to "All Pages" for relevant categories
Search looks at page titles, as well as content
Multiple other usability enhancements and bug fixes

···

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

2

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

<fanfares/>

Ladies and gentlemen!

It is a great pleasure for me to announce the release of version 0.10.0 of Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby world.

Really? You're not just going by downloads, are you?

James

3

Does this mean that Instiki can now be easily integrated into a real web
server like Apache?

Ben

···

On Friday 08 April 2005 09:24, Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

It is also an early ancestor of Rails. In this version Instiki becomes a
real Rails application.

4

James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> writes:

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

<fanfares/>
Ladies and gentlemen!
It is a great pleasure for me to announce the release of version
0.10.0 of Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby
world.

Really? You're not just going by downloads, are you?

What else could be the most popular Ruby *application*?

···

James

--
Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@gmail.com> http://chneukirchen.org

5

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:
> It is a great pleasure for me to announce the release of version 0.10.0
> of Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby world.

(Sorry, misplaced the original announcement.)

I didn't notice anything in the announcement, so, is the (persistent) storage
still by some form of "persisted objects" (marshalling?) as opposed to, a
more ordinary file format (like plain text)?

Randy Kramer

6

James Britt wrote:

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby world.

Really? You're not just going by downloads, are you?

Of course not! I've just recently paid 123,456.00 USD for a worldwide market research of Ruby end-user applications, so noone can sue me for the misrepresentation of facts. :slight_smile:

Seriously though, is there another end-user Ruby application more popular than Instiki? Not counting development tools?

···

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

7

Ben Giddings wrote:

···

On Friday 08 April 2005 09:24, Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

It is also an early ancestor of Rails. In this version Instiki becomes a real Rails application.
   

Does this mean that Instiki can now be easily integrated into a real web server like Apache?

Actually, no. It is still a ProxyPass story, because of the Madeleine backend.

It may be a bit easier now to set up the URL rewriting (thanks to Routes), but I don't have any firsthand experience in this department.

--

Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

8

Randy Kramer wrote:

so, is the (persistent) storage still by some form of "persisted objects" (marshalling?)

Yes, it is still the same backend, albeit the handling of persistence layer is somewhat enhanced there.

···

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

9

Christian Neukirchen wrote:

James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> writes:

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

<fanfares/>
Ladies and gentlemen!
It is a great pleasure for me to announce the release of version
0.10.0 of Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby
world.

Really? You're not just going by downloads, are you?

What else could be the most popular Ruby *application*?

I'm not making any claims; I'm wondering how you support yours.

James

10

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

James Britt wrote:

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

Instiki, the most popular end-user application in the Ruby world.

Really? You're not just going by downloads, are you?

Of course not! I've just recently paid 123,456.00 USD for a worldwide market research of Ruby end-user applications, so noone can sue me for the misrepresentation of facts. :slight_smile:

Seriously though, is there another end-user Ruby application more popular than Instiki? Not counting development tools?

How would one know? And what is gained by claiming something for which there is no objective means of proof or argument?

James

Hype is the new black

11

Alexey,

Thanks!

Randy Kramer

···

On Friday 08 April 2005 12:05 pm, Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

Randy Kramer wrote:
>so, is the (persistent) storage
>still by some form of "persisted objects" (marshalling?)

Yes, it is still the same backend, albeit the handling of persistence
layer is somewhat enhanced there.

12

James Britt wrote:

How would one know?

James,

"Knowing" may be a strong word, but this: http://rubyforge.org/top/toplist.php?type=downloads is an objective fact. I interpret it in a certain way, and I don't know any other fact that contradicts my current interpretation.

You don't need to tell me that just the downloads count is not "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of proof, but (in the absence of counter-evidence) it would probably pass the "on the balance of evidence" test.

> And what is gained by claiming something for which there is no objective means of proof or argument?
There is objective means of argument (see above). As for the gains:
1. Hype => publicity => more users => a more rewarding and relevant hobby for yours truly.
2. Somebody may actually show me that there is a more popular end-user Ruby application than Instiki. I would be genuinely interested to hear this.

So, come on, let's have a popularity pissing context among Ruby end-user applications. We may actually learn something useful that way. Any takers?

···

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

13

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

James Britt wrote:

How would one know?

James,

"Knowing" may be a strong word, but this: http://rubyforge.org/top/toplist.php?type=downloads is an objective fact. I interpret it in a certain way, and I don't know any other fact that contradicts my current interpretation.

That pretty much sums things up.

...
So, come on, let's have a popularity pissing context among Ruby end-user applications. We may actually learn something useful that way. Any takers?

This is the sort of thing Ruby can do without, but happens anyway.

James

14

James Britt wrote:

So, come on, let's have a popularity pissing context among Ruby end-user applications. We may actually learn something useful that way. Any takers?

This is the sort of thing Ruby can do without, but happens anyway.

Why do you think it is such a bad thing?

···

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

15

Because it confuses popularity with quality.

-austin

···

On Apr 8, 2005 10:59 PM, Alexey Verkhovsky <alex@verk.info> wrote:

James Britt wrote:
>> So, come on, let's have a popularity pissing context among Ruby
>> end-user applications. We may actually learn something useful that
>> way. Any takers?
> This is the sort of thing Ruby can do without, but happens anyway.
Why do you think it is such a bad thing?

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

16

So, come on, let's have a popularity pissing context among Ruby
end-user applications. We may actually learn something useful that
way. Any takers?

This is the sort of thing Ruby can do without, but happens anyway.

Why do you think it is such a bad thing?

Because it confuses popularity with quality.

The confusion would be a personal mistake, then. Alexey merely wrote "most popular end-user application in the Ruby world", so he wasn't taking part of any qualitative evaluation -- merely drawing a reasonable interpretation of number downloads => largest reach => most popular. I think that's a generally accepted chain of reasoning.

The record of the week with the most sales is said to be the most popular one. That definition doesn't include the intensity of popularity (user A buying both X and Y, but _enjoying_ the purchase of X much more than Y), but the lack of resolution surely doesn't preclude the use of popularity as defined above as a meaningful indicator.

···

--
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://www.basecamphq.com/ -- Web-based Project Management
http://www.rubyonrails.org/ -- Web-application framework for Ruby
http://www.loudthinking.com/ -- Broadcasting Brain

17

Austin Ziegler wrote:

Because it confuses popularity with quality.

Oh, gosh! I would never ever dare to propose a quality pissing context - believe me :slight_smile:

Popularity (number of users), however, is important to me, because I want to help make Ruby a mainstream technology. Instiki success in that department tells us something.

···

--
Best regards,

Alexey Verkhovsky

Ruby Forum: http://ruby-forum.org (moderator)
RForum: http://rforum.andreas-s.net (co-author)
Instiki: http://instiki.org (maintainer)

18

David Heinemeier Hansson wrote:

So, come on, let's have a popularity pissing context among Ruby
end-user applications. We may actually learn something useful that
way. Any takers?

This is the sort of thing Ruby can do without, but happens anyway.

Why do you think it is such a bad thing?

Because it confuses popularity with quality.

The confusion would be a personal mistake, then. Alexey merely wrote "most popular end-user application in the Ruby world", so he wasn't taking part of any qualitative evaluation -- merely drawing a reasonable interpretation of number downloads => largest reach => most popular. I think that's a generally accepted chain of reasoning.

Perhaps, but if so, then simply citing the download figures should be enough, rather than telling people how to interpret them.

(And it's disingenuous to dismiss the implicit association between popularity and quality as perhaps a uniquely personal observation. Surely people believe popularity indicates some sort of value, else why would anyone bother citing it?)

The record of the week with the most sales is said to be the most popular one. That definition doesn't include the intensity of popularity (user A buying both X and Y, but _enjoying_ the purchase of X much more than Y), but the lack of resolution surely doesn't preclude the use of popularity as defined above as a meaningful indicator.

Well, apples and oranges. Costs nothing to download an app and try it out, see if it got any better than last time. I've downloaded Instiki a few times, but still don't care for it. Meanwhile, there are other apps I've down loaded once, they do exactly what I want, and I use them. No need t go download it again and again.

(Out of curiosity, are the download numbers restricted to each current version, or cumulative for all versions over time? )

Overall, what I find annoying about certain claims (and this is hardly restricted to Ruby apps) is when an opinion or personal interpretation is presented as some sort of objective truth, especially when it is just as easy to cite observable data and trust people to be smart enough to come to reasonable conclusions.

James

···

--

http://catapult.rubyforge.com
http://orbjson.rubyforge.com
http://ooo4r.rubyforge.com
http://www.jamesbritt.com

19

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

Popularity (number of users), however, is important to me, because I want to help make Ruby a mainstream technology. Instiki success in that department tells us something.

Knowing how many people have downloaded an application gives you, at best, an upper bound on the number of people who actually like and use the application. You could add a little phone-home module that generated real-time usage statistics, but that would be evil. :slight_smile: A more practical idea would be a simple poll, asking about what Ruby applications are actually used, broken out by categories, e.g. long-running servers vs. command-line or GUI tools vs. shared libraries.

My instinct says Instiki is downloaded frequently for three reasons, 1) wikis are fairly self-contained, 2) wikis are interesting, yet easy to understand, 3) Instiki promises a safe and zero-hassle installation. So, people that are exploring Ruby see it and say, "OK, I know what a wiki is, and it would be fun to play with one, but I don't want to mess up my machine or get lost in some messy configuration scheme." The question is, after they've played for an hour or two does it ever get run again?

···

--
Glenn Parker | glenn.parker-AT-comcast.net | <http://www.tetrafoil.com/&gt;

20

I'm not sure that it does, really. Don't get me wrong -- I don't
begrudge Instiki's success in whatever measure is being used -- but
I'm not sure that Instiki is sufficiently non-techy enough to really
qualify as something that *drives* the use of Ruby by the end user.

I think that application has yet to be written.

-austin

···

On 4/9/05, Alexey Verkhovsky <alex@verk.info> wrote:

Austin Ziegler wrote:

Because it confuses popularity with quality.

Oh, gosh! I would never ever dare to propose a quality pissing
context - believe me :slight_smile:

Popularity (number of users), however, is important to me, because
I want to help make Ruby a mainstream technology. Instiki success
in that department tells us something.

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca