eekim.com: EEK Speaks

Mon, Aug 18, 2003

PurpleWiki v0.9 Released #

PurpleWiki v0.9 is now available. ChrisDent's announcement covers the basics. A few words on how we got here, and where we're going. (83)

The Wiki Experiment (84)

When we launched BlueOxenAssociates last December, we made Wikis a core part of our infrastructure. We had two reasons for choosing Wikis. The first was practical. We needed a system for sharing documents and collaborative authoring, and Wikis fit the bill quite nicely. (85)

The second reason was more philosophical. We wanted a knowledge management system like DougEngelbart's OpenHyperdocumentSystem (OHS), and felt that Wikis already resembled the OHS in many ways. It was immediately usable and useful, while also offering the perfect platform for coevolution. (86)

PurpleWiki fulfills the following OHS requirements: (87)

BackLinks. This is a core feature of all Wikis, but also one of its most underutilized. In a future version of PurpleWiki, we will create an open API to its BackLink engine, so that other applications (such as blogs) may use it. (88)
Granular Addressability. PurpleWiki's site-wide, automatic PurpleNumber management had the additional benefit of enabling us to quickly experiment and evolve the feature. Node IDs are now document-independent, which has improved usability and enabled features like TransClusions. (89)
Link Types. We've added a syntax for specifying link types, and have implemented our first new link type: TransClusions. (8A)
View Control. We can easily add new or customize existing output formats, thanks to PurpleWiki's modular architecture. More importantly, we can implement dynamic views, such as a collapsible outline view, of any document on PurpleWiki. (8B)

PurpleWiki's most visible feature is PurpleNumbers, but its most important feature is its data architecture. In general, Wikis view the world as a graph of linked documents. PurpleWiki views the world as a graph of linked documents with a unified data model. The data model is sufficiently general and simple to apply to any kind of document. When you use this data model in other applications, you automatically inherit PurpleWiki's features. Integrating PurpleWiki with blogs was a piece of cake as a result, and we've only begun to explore the ramifications. (8C)

Next Steps (8D)

Our roadmap lists several enterprise features we plan on implementing: templates, pluggable database back-ends, mod_perl controller, etc. I consider these important, but relatively mundane. BlueOxenAssociates isn't in the business of software development; we're implementing these features because we need them. (8E)

BlueOxenAssociates is in the business of research and improvement, and of facilitating coevolution. PurpleWiki is an amazing platform for this. One of Chris's pet projects is to create universal ID space for nodes, possibly based on handles. Think of this as persistent URIs for nodes. Among other things, this will enable us to support TransClusions of content from other sites, not just the site on which PurpleWiki is installed. (8F)

My long-term interests lie in three areas: the aforementioned open BackLink engine, Wiki page types, and Wiki namespaces. I'll discuss the latter a bit here. (8G)

One of the reasons I dislike TWiki is its notion of "webs." You can partition your Wiki into multiple webs, and each web is contained in its own namespace. The problem with this is that it encourages people to balkanize their Wiki content. That, in my opinion, runs counter to the spirit of Wikis. Early balkanization prevents evolution. (8H)

Several months ago, RichardGabriel passed along some insight he had learned from WardCunningham: In computer science, you want to keep namespaces separate. With Wikis, you want namespaces to clash. Ward's idea for SisterSites is one way to create namespace clash. This idea could be taken a step further by allowing site administrators to establish a system of namespace resolution. For example, if a certain page doesn't exist on a local namespace, the Wiki would search another namespace for that page. If it existed there, the Wiki would simply take the user to that page. (8I)

/tech/purple | Posted at 1:01pm

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A blog about collaboration, community-building, and the various goings-on at Blue Oxen Associates, with occasional digressions on food and other vital matters.