Ideas For New Servlets-Based Wiki System
Peace, All JOS Collaborators!
I've some (too many) ideas I wanted to discuss
with you about designing a new WikiWikiWeb-like collaboration
system, based on Java Servlets!
- I propose designing and building a collaboration tool, like the WikiWikiWeb currently used, but Java Servlets-based (and an OODB, actually), that can do everything.
- By collaboration tool I mean a hypermedia content editing and management tool, with: Hypertext links, search and query, SemiStructured content nodes, virtual hypertext network structures for dynamic info, and of course versioning, extensibility, and tailoring.
- Why do it?
For JOS, some goals could be:
- The site needs a thorough reorganization, as already raised by someone (?) in JosDesign, since the current hypertext is very difficult to navigate --
- To better support the software development phases: Requirements elicitation and analysis, design, and coding
- To assist us in studying and understanding (the teks and the JOS project's evolution) instead of becoming yet another tool-in-the-way hurdle
- JOS Project: Specifically, it's visibility, IMHO, will be seriously hindered by obscure site (hypertext) layouts and noise (Specifically, my problem is, that I have to fetch 100 pages from the site to just get a grasp of what is being done, by whom, what the status of sub-projects is...)
- Dynamic: The main page is some starting point, but for the substantial increase in visibility that JOS must get, many more entry pages and dynamic participation are due
- The hypermail mailing-lists archives converter should be replaced by a full "gateway", so that participation via either eMail or Web/HTML (or Java applets/viewers!) is supported. (Meaning, in realtime like Wiki does... Ok?)
- The Wiki system is passive. There are so many things a more interactive tool can accomplish that we can't now. To take the concept to the extreme (is it?): Discussion forums, version control systems, workflow management tools, and file-systems, can all be (better) implemented by a Web-paradigm-Java-Servlets-based tool
- Discussion Forum: Compared to Web-based forums (eg tool by Web Crossing used (was?) by JavaLobby's forums), JOS's Wiki is less friendly, and it shouldn't be. I believe Servlets (or real CGI programs) are always better than Perl scripts and simil text manipulation hacks, as a healthy foundation for applications programming --
- Especially with Version Control systems: These are fundamentally quite what our Wiki collaboration tool is up to
- Attributes (cf SemiStructured): Value/key pairs and (partial) syntactic structure to support automatic processing (scripting/rules-based), eg, cross-referencing, filtering, formatting, etc
- Workflow Management: Most important application of this system is to enable control of info/work flow for JOS projects
- Versioning, of course, so that changes can be rolled-back, crashes recovered from, etc. Also think "journaling filesystem" --
- File-system: What are Oracle contriving with their Internet File System (IFS)? (At last junking lousy filesystems and using a DBMS instead: reliable, distributed, virtual, etc; Also see DeathOfTheFileSystem)
- Automation: To give the JOS site wider appeal, make it really useful (that's what marketing types always suggest, anyway). Why not, eg, provide an annotated index of links to Java resources (that is, something deeper than Readings), that users can add to?
Thanks, and please send/post what you think!
-- IaRad, iaJava@yahoo.com
References/Bibl
1 Thomas W Malone, "Semi-structured messages are surprisingly useful for computer-supported coordination", ACM TOIS v5n2 1987 p115-131
2 Frank G Halasz, "Reflections on NoteCards: 7 issues for next-generation hypermedia systems", comm' ACM, v31n7 July 1988 p836-852
3 Jackob Nielsen (SunSoft), "The impending demise of the File System", IEEE Software Mar96 p100
4 Munir Mandviwalla + Lorne Olfman, "What do groups need? A proposed set of generic GroupWare requirements", ACM Trans.CHI v1n3 Sep1994 p245-268
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