# Wiki reccomendations

**URL:** <https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126>\
**Category:** ruby-talk\
**Created:** [18 September 2003 06:53 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126 "2003-09-18T06:53:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ara.T.Howard1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ara.T.Howard1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Ara.T.Howard1)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 06:53 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/1 "2003-09-18T06:53:12Z")

</div>

any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards simplicity  
over features.

-a

> **···**
>
> ====================================
> 
> > Ara Howard  
> > NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory  
> > Information and Technology Services  
> > Data Systems Group  
> > R/FST 325 Broadway  
> > Boulder, CO 80305-3328  
> > Email: [ara.t.howard@noaa.gov](mailto:ara.t.howard@noaa.gov)  
> > Phone: 303-497-7238  
> > Fax: 303-497-7259  
> > ~ \> ruby -e ‘p(%.\x2d\x29…intern)’  
> > ====================================

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_Heinemeier\_Ha2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/fbc32d/32.png) [@David\_Heinemeier\_Ha2](https://rubytalk.org/u/David_Heinemeier_Ha2)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 12:52 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/2 "2003-09-18T12:52:35Z")

</div>

> any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> simplicity  
> over features.

I have a really simple wiki almost ready for alpha testing. It’s built  
on Madeleine and WEBrick. It doesn’t have a concept of users nor  
concurrency editing yet, but it’s never the less pretty useful.

Currently it has: Recent changes, searching (regexps), referenced-by

And since it’s built on Madeleine and WEBrick, it’s really easy to get  
running. Just run one script and point your browser to localhost:2500.

What are your must-have needs?

> **···**
>
> –  
> David Heinemeier Hansson,  
> [http://www.loudthinking.com/](http://www.loudthinking.com/) – Thoughts for free  
> [http://www.nextangle.com/](http://www.nextangle.com/) – Thoughts for hire

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Austin\_Ziegler2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@Austin\_Ziegler2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Austin_Ziegler2)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 14:06 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/3 "2003-09-18T14:06:48Z")

</div>

I used ruwiki. I’ve heavily modified it, and I think that Alan will be using  
significant chunks of what I’ve done, but you can look around my wiki at:  
[You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. // halo • statue](http://www.halostatue.ca/ruwiki/ruwiki.cgi)

If you want the version I use, I can zip it up. I have a rudimentary locking  
system that I added and a very rudimentary versioning system (but no way to  
get the versions out yet).

-austin

> **···**
>
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 15:53:12 +0900, ahoward wrote:
> 
> > any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> > simplicity over features.
> > 
> > -a
> 
> –  
> austin ziegler \* austin@halostatue.ca \* Toronto, ON, Canada  
> software designer \* pragmatic programmer \* 2003.09.18  
> \* 10.05.14

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Carl\_Youngblood4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@Carl\_Youngblood4](https://rubytalk.org/u/Carl_Youngblood4)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 23:55 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/4 "2003-09-18T23:55:59Z")

</div>

The biggest feature that is not often included but is so useful is file  
attachments. This way people can upload images and include them in  
their wiki pages and can also collaborate with one another a lot easier.  
I’m not interested in everything but the kitchen sink, but file  
attachments are pretty important, IMO.

ahoward wrote:

> any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> simplicity

> **···**
>
> > over features.
> > 
> > # -a
> > 
> > > Ara Howard  
> > > NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory  
> > > Information and Technology Services  
> > > Data Systems Group  
> > > R/FST 325 Broadway  
> > > Boulder, CO 80305-3328  
> > > Email: [ara.t.howard@noaa.gov](mailto:ara.t.howard@noaa.gov)  
> > > Phone: 303-497-7238  
> > > Fax: 303-497-7259  
> > > ~ \> ruby -e ‘p(%.\x2d\x29…intern)’  
> > > ====================================

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sgcjr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d07c76/32.png) [@Sgcjr](https://rubytalk.org/u/Sgcjr)\
**Post date:** [19 September 2003 04:16 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/5 "2003-09-19T04:16:37Z")

</div>

ahoward [ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov](mailto:ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov) wrote in message news:[Pine.LNX.4.53.0309180427540.20470@eli.fsl.noaa.gov](mailto:Pine.LNX.4.53.0309180427540.20470@eli.fsl.noaa.gov)…

> any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards simplicity  
> over features.

Definitely check out MiniRubyWiki. Astonishing simplicity.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mpcjans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e79b87/32.png) [@Mpcjans](https://rubytalk.org/u/Mpcjans)\
**Post date:** [19 September 2003 08:17 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/6 "2003-09-19T08:17:08Z")

</div>

ahoward [ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov](mailto:ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov) wrote in message news:[Pine.LNX.4.53.0309180427540.20470@eli.fsl.noaa.gov](mailto:Pine.LNX.4.53.0309180427540.20470@eli.fsl.noaa.gov)…

> any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards simplicity  
> over features.

I have hacked something together during the last week or so and it  
really is a hack. However it’s very simple and should be easy to  
extend. It’s using webrick and the diff algoritm implementation by  
Lars Christensen for logging of changes.  
It works great for me personally but it’s probably not very suitable  
to run on a publicly accessible server. I run it as a personal server  
on my laptop.  
I don’t want to post the whole source here (around 8kb) but I can mail  
it to you if you want. Just drop me an e-mail in case you are  
interested.

Mark

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ara.T.Howard1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ara.T.Howard1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Ara.T.Howard1)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 15:54 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/7 "2003-09-18T15:54:44Z")

</div>

hmmm.

what’s the markup like? personally i’d like a way to create links w/o using  
CamelCase 😉

seriously though

- concurent editing would be good. perhaps pstore could be used as a pure  
ruby way to aquire persistent locks?

other than that i can’t think of too much. i really like the idea of using  
webrick and madeleine.

-a

> **···**
>
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, David Heinemeier Hansson wrote:
> 
> > > any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> > > simplicity  
> > > over features.
> > 
> > I have a really simple wiki almost ready for alpha testing. It’s built  
> > on Madeleine and WEBrick. It doesn’t have a concept of users nor  
> > concurrency editing yet, but it’s never the less pretty useful.
> > 
> > Currently it has: Recent changes, searching (regexps), referenced-by
> > 
> > And since it’s built on Madeleine and WEBrick, it’s really easy to get  
> > running. Just run one script and point your browser to localhost:2500.
> > 
> > What are your must-have needs?
> 
> ====================================
> 
> > Ara Howard  
> > NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory  
> > Information and Technology Services  
> > Data Systems Group  
> > R/FST 325 Broadway  
> > Boulder, CO 80305-3328  
> > Email: [ara.t.howard@noaa.gov](mailto:ara.t.howard@noaa.gov)  
> > Phone: 303-497-7238  
> > Fax: 303-497-7259  
> > ~ \> ruby -e ‘p(%.\x2d\x29…intern)’  
> > ====================================

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ara.T.Howard1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ara.T.Howard1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Ara.T.Howard1)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 17:15 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/8 "2003-09-18T17:15:05Z")

</div>

austin-

thanks. i’d love a copy. can you post it or send it to me directly?

-a

> **···**
>
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 15:53:12 +0900, ahoward wrote:
> > 
> > > any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> > > simplicity over features.
> > > 
> > > -a
> > 
> > I used ruwiki. I’ve heavily modified it, and I think that Alan will be using  
> > significant chunks of what I’ve done, but you can look around my wiki at:  
> > [You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. // halo • statue](http://www.halostatue.ca/ruwiki/ruwiki.cgi)
> > 
> > If you want the version I use, I can zip it up. I have a rudimentary locking  
> > system that I added and a very rudimentary versioning system (but no way to  
> > get the versions out yet).
> 
> ====================================
> 
> > Ara Howard  
> > NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory  
> > Information and Technology Services  
> > Data Systems Group  
> > R/FST 325 Broadway  
> > Boulder, CO 80305-3328  
> > Email: [ara.t.howard@noaa.gov](mailto:ara.t.howard@noaa.gov)  
> > Phone: 303-497-7238  
> > Fax: 303-497-7259  
> > ~ \> ruby -e ‘p(%.\x2d\x29…intern)’  
> > ====================================

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ara.T.Howard1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ara.T.Howard1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Ara.T.Howard1)\
**Post date:** [19 September 2003 15:38 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/9 "2003-09-19T15:38:02Z")

</div>

i am interested. austin recently sent me one too (thanks austin). feel free  
to send it to me or, even better, post it on rubygarden. sure seems like  
there is a lot of momentum in this area but not much direction - i mean, there  
is a lot of people rolling there own because they didn’t quite like this or  
that or needed this or that. i’ve been asking alot of my friends and usemod  
(the single perl script) seems like it’s winning the popularity contest around  
here - i wonder why _exactly_…

i just read my own post and decided that rubygarden needs a place to compile  
common specifications - like specifications for what an uber wiki would do.  
my hope is that people, when starting a project, could create a specification  
page and let people have at it. after some time, one could filter and  
prioritize based on the wants/needs of the community. the starting place for  
specifications can be found at:

[http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?CategorySpec](http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?CategorySpec)

and the spec page for the uber wiki at:

[http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?UberWiki](http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?UberWiki)

-a

> **···**
>
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Mark Janssen wrote:
> 
> > ahoward [ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov](mailto:ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov) wrote in message  
> > news:[Pine.LNX.4.53.0309180427540.20470@eli.fsl.noaa.gov](mailto:Pine.LNX.4.53.0309180427540.20470@eli.fsl.noaa.gov)…
> > 
> > > any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> > > simplicity over features.
> > 
> > I have hacked something together during the last week or so and it really is  
> > a hack. However it’s very simple and should be easy to extend. It’s using  
> > webrick and the diff algoritm implementation by Lars Christensen for logging  
> > of changes. It works great for me personally but it’s probably not very  
> > suitable to run on a publicly accessible server. I run it as a personal  
> > server on my laptop. I don’t want to post the whole source here (around  
> > 8kb) but I can mail it to you if you want. Just drop me an e-mail in case  
> > you are interested.
> 
> ====================================
> 
> > Ara Howard  
> > NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory  
> > Information and Technology Services  
> > Data Systems Group  
> > R/FST 325 Broadway  
> > Boulder, CO 80305-3328  
> > Email: [ara.t.howard@noaa.gov](mailto:ara.t.howard@noaa.gov)  
> > Phone: 303-497-7238  
> > Fax: 303-497-7259  
> > ~ \> ruby -e ‘p(%.\x2d\x29…intern)’  
> > ====================================

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jim\_Freeze2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@Jim\_Freeze2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Jim_Freeze2)\
**Post date:** [22 September 2003 02:50 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/10 "2003-09-22T02:50:10Z")

</div>

Austin:

I am interested in your version of ruwiki. Can you send me a copy?  
Also, do you plan to make an official release of your changes?

Thanks

> **···**
>
> On Thursday, 18 September 2003 at 23:06:48 +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 
> > I used ruwiki. I’ve heavily modified it, and I think that Alan will be using  
> > significant chunks of what I’ve done, but you can look around my wiki at:  
> > [You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. // halo • statue](http://www.halostatue.ca/ruwiki/ruwiki.cgi)
> > 
> > If you want the version I use, I can zip it up. I have a rudimentary locking  
> > system that I added and a very rudimentary versioning system (but no way to  
> > get the versions out yet).
> 
> ## – Jim Freeze
> 
> A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard  
> – Prof. Steiner

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_Morris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Chris\_Morris](https://rubytalk.org/u/Chris_Morris)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 16:36 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/11 "2003-09-18T16:36:59Z")

</div>

ahoward wrote:

> > > any votes/reccomendations for best ruby wiki? i’m leaning towards  
> > > simplicity  
> > > over features.
> > 
> > What are your must-have needs?
> 
> hmmm.
> 
> what’s the markup like? personally i’d like a way to create links w/o using  
> CamelCase 😉
> 
> seriously though
> 
> - concurent editing would be good. perhaps pstore could be used as a pure  
> ruby way to aquire persistent locks?
> 
> other than that i can’t think of too much.

I’ve got my own I’ve built - clWiki. Tested on Windows and FreeBSD. Blog  
view for recent changes. You can see it in action (this one’s read-only)  
here: [http://clabs.org/blogki](http://clabs.org/blogki). Download is here:  
[http://clabs.org/dl/clwiki](http://clabs.org/dl/clwiki) (oops, just noticed the latest release hasn’t  
been foisted up there - lemme know if you want it).

File based storage, no special markup (well, very limited special  
markup), protects against concurrent edits. CamelCase page creation.  
Full hierarchy (which many consider a negative 🙂

I don’t know of anyone else who’s used it, so probably not the simplest  
way to get up and running, but I’ve generally leaned towards simplicity  
in exchange for features.

Code is open-sourced: BSD.

> **···**
>
> –
> 
> Chris  
> [http://clabs.org/blogki](http://clabs.org/blogki)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Austin\_Ziegler2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@Austin\_Ziegler2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Austin_Ziegler2)\
**Post date:** [22 September 2003 04:46 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/12 "2003-09-22T04:46:26Z")

</div>

Well, Alan’s the maintainer, and I’m not planning on forking what he’s done.  
I have sent to him what I have done, so most of what’s there should be in  
the next “official” version. I’ve actually got it mostly working as I want  
it (there are only three major changes that I can think of offhand:  
improvements to versioning, making edit previews better, and making the  
versions visible).

I’ll talk with him and see if he wants to release what I have done as a new  
version until he gets time to do more work on it.

-austin

> **···**
>
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 11:50:10 +0900, Jim Freeze wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday, 18 September 2003 at 23:06:48 +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> > 
> > > I used ruwiki. I’ve heavily modified it, and I think that Alan will be  
> > > using significant chunks of what I’ve done, but you can look around my  
> > > wiki at: [You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. // halo • statue](http://www.halostatue.ca/ruwiki/ruwiki.cgi)
> > > 
> > > If you want the version I use, I can zip it up. I have a rudimentary  
> > > locking system that I added and a very rudimentary versioning system  
> > > (but no way to get the versions out yet).  
> > > Austin:
> > 
> > I am interested in your version of ruwiki. Can you send me a copy? Also,  
> > do you plan to make an official release of your changes?
> 
> –  
> austin ziegler \* austin@halostatue.ca \* Toronto, ON, Canada  
> software designer \* pragmatic programmer \* 2003.09.22  
> \* 00.39.31

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chad\_Fowler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@Chad\_Fowler](https://rubytalk.org/u/Chad_Fowler)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 16:57 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/13 "2003-09-18T16:57:25Z")

</div>

# ahoward wrote:

# \>what’s the markup like? personally i’d like a way to create links w/o using

# \>CamelCase 😉

# \>

I guess Ruby wikis should use underscore\_wiki\_links instead of CamelCase  
🙂

I’ve been hoping for a nice simple Ruby wiki with few (if any) external  
dependencies for some time now. We use usemod for RubyGarden, because  
it’s so incredibly simple. It would be lovely to have a direct Ruby  
equivalent to usemod.

Chad

> **···**
>
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Chris Morris wrote:

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alan\_Chen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b782af/32.png) [@Alan\_Chen1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Alan_Chen1)\
**Post date:** [22 September 2003 17:50 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/14 "2003-09-22T17:50:42Z")

</div>

Austin Ziegler [austin@halostatue.ca](mailto:austin@halostatue.ca) wrote in message news:[200392204620.787619@PADD](mailto:200392204620.787619@PADD)…

> I’ll talk with him and see if he wants to release what I have done as a new  
> version until he gets time to do more work on it.
> 
> -austin

I’ve opened a Rubyforge project for Ruwiki. I’ll upload both my  
current version of Ruwiki as well as Austins version sometime this  
week. The two versions will get merged later (after I complete my  
upcoming house move… 🙂

- alan

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ara.T.Howard1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ara.T.Howard1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Ara.T.Howard1)\
**Post date:** [18 September 2003 22:35 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/wiki-reccomendations/8126/15 "2003-09-18T22:35:47Z")

</div>

> # ahoward wrote:
> 
> # \>what’s the markup like? personally i’d like a way to create links w/o using
> 
> # \>CamelCase 😉
> 
> # \>
> 
> I guess Ruby wikis should use underscore\_wiki\_links instead of CamelCase  
> 🙂

amen brother!

camel\_case = %r{^\s\*(?:[A-Z][a-z]+){2,}\s\*$}  
raise NotPrettyError if camel\_case.match ident

for some reason i don’t find camel case too bad for classes, et. al. - but TOO  
much of it (like java) gets insane.

flames on! 😉

-a

> **···**
>
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Chad Fowler wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Chris Morris wrote:
> 
> > I’ve been hoping for a nice simple Ruby wiki with few (if any) external  
> > dependencies for some time now. We use usemod for RubyGarden, because  
> > it’s so incredibly simple. It would be lovely to have a direct Ruby  
> > equivalent to usemod.
> > 
> > Chad
> 
> ====================================
> 
> > Ara Howard  
> > NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory  
> > Information and Technology Services  
> > Data Systems Group  
> > R/FST 325 Broadway  
> > Boulder, CO 80305-3328  
> > Email: [ara.t.howard@noaa.gov](mailto:ara.t.howard@noaa.gov)  
> > Phone: 303-497-7238  
> > Fax: 303-497-7259  
> > ~ \> ruby -e ‘p(%.\x2d\x29…intern)’  
> > ====================================