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Programming Knowledge Wiki
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:11 am
by Ollie Saunders
I've discussed something like this
before and it seemed to just die off despite positive reactions.
Anyway someone has set up a site called
DocForge, a wiki for all programming knowledge. It seems like a really good idea to me and I'm wondering if anyone here would be interested in contributing to PHP/web related articles for it. The content of the wiki seems to be quite poorly defined at the moment (nothing wrong with that it is up to the community to define it over time) so we could probably take it in whatever direction we liked - I've not discussed anything with the owner so this is all speculation.
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 9:55 am
by RobertGonzalez
I think the guy that put that site up hit this community up for contributors already. It is kinda funny seeing as he did that about a week after another member here asked for contributors for his site that does exactly the same thing.
As with all community supported projects, this one would require people with time to give in addition to their knowledge. I would offer one if I had the other. You choose which I have

.
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:49 pm
by aaronhall
I pondered starting a "programming wiki" several months ago, and was never able to define what would separate it from the existing documentation and tutorials/articles that are already available. What would the scope of the content be? Is it documentation, code examples, tutorials, theory, coding conventions... all of that? How would all of this content be made any more usable and accessible than existing content providers, the manuals or Google are?
There certainly isn't a lack of programming documentation already freely available -- seems that the goal of this project is to rewrite it all. Why?
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:39 am
by dreamscape
There already is the
PHP Wiki which has a decent amount of content.
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:12 am
by veridicus
I think I explained it best on my
user page:
My motivation for creating DocForge came partly from frustration. Every software developer is familiar with looking at a variety of sources of information: books, online documentation, forums, etc. Books are usually most useful for specific reference and general learning. They often quickly become outdated. Online documentation is relatively static and often incomplete or lacking in important details. Forums are great for finding answers to specific problems but are much less useful for reference.
An organically growing wiki can be a great help to software developers. Cross-reference, flexibility, organization, and contributions from many make it a great reference. I have a lot of experience which can help others, but I'm not interested in a one-sided conversation or locking my contributions. So I spawned an open wiki to contribute my knowledge and connect it with the knowledge of others. Plus I can organize the information in a useful way that others don't. I think people also find a site dedicated to software developers to be more useful then a general reference wiki.
I hope everyone finds DocForge useful, but every developer has their preferences for how they get and share information. I simply put together what works well for me.
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:55 am
by Ollie Saunders
I'm going to priortise my contribution according to what I believe will have the greatest value. Whilst there is some value in rewriting manuals, better and providing more in depth definitions than say, wikipedia. The most value will come from providing the types of information that are very scarce or rarely of very good quality. So I think I'm going to start with writing some tutorials and howtos for various things and expand them over time to be as comprehensive as possible.