Re: [Chicken-users] Rewriting Svnwiki in Java or PHP

[Peter Busser]

Hi!

On Sun, Apr 01, 2007 at 05:37:15AM +0000, Alejandro Forero Cuervo wrote:
> I have been having some conversations with Nelson Castillo and other
> Svnwiki users and contributors.  Some of us believe that by rewriting
> Svnwiki entirely in another programming language the number of
> contributions would increase significantly.  A lot of people would
> like to contribute but they lack the programming skills required to
> learn Scheme.

I'm not sure whether the contributions would increase significantly.
Most free software projects depend on a very small number of developers.

> We are considering rewriting it in either Java or PHP.  I'm leaning
> more towards Java but a very good case for PHP has been made by
> Arhuaco.  We have also considered Python, Ruby and C#.

The disadvantage of svnwiki is that it depends on Subversion. Currently
Adamantix uses Wiliki, which is written in Guache Scheme. It is perhaps
not the best Wiki out there. But it is install and forget. I would switch
to svnwiki because it has more features and is under active development
(and because it runs on Chicken). I don't know if I would contribute,
because I am still not a very good Scheme programmer. Most free software
projects only have a few people who do most of the work.

But for me the obstacle which prevents me from switching to svnwiki is that
it depends on Subversion. No doubt is Subversion an excellent piece of
software. Only a piece of software I don't use and therefore don't know.
Of course I could invest time to learn Subversion, but for what? It is
much easier to install Wiliki, even if it provides less functionality.

Rewriting svnwiki in Java or PHP would only make it less attractive for
me. Java is an even bigger dependency of (at this moment still) non-free
software. PHP is free, but for me it doesn't remove the Subversion
obstacle.

Somewhere in the distant future I could contribute svnwiki packages for
Adamantix, Debian, and Ubuntu.

Well these are my 2 Euro-cents...

Groetjes,
Peter.