Book Report for CIT198B D01 Dynamic Web Applications
Wikis For Dummies® ; Dan Woods, Peter Thoeny, Ward Cunningham - Inventor of wikis.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Pub. Date: July 23, 2007
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-470-04399-8
Pages in Print Edition: 336
I selected this book for its information about Wikis, and it was the most comprehensive and the latest publication that I could locate, that was not solely technical in content. The book is divided into four sections: the Part I - Introduction to Wikis; Part II - Selecting a hosted Wiki for yourself and creating a Wiki; Part III – Promoting, managing, and Improving your Wiki; Part IV – Covers the ten things you can do with Wikis to make them successful.
The book gives a comprehensive history of the Wiki and how and why it was created. The author explains the difference between a web wiki site and a standard website coded in HTML. Wikis can be created with little or no knowledge of web programming or scripting. Discussions about the different categories of wikis are very interesting, either in a wiki farm or on your own or hosted server. Wiki farms are preformatted wiki sites on which you can create your own wiki. Some wiki farms may have as many as 50 wikis on them in several categories. Also included was an overview of installing your own wiki on either a shared server or dedicated server. I am interested in installing a wiki on one of my websites and this book gives me enough information to get me started.
The book deals with using the preformatted wiki host sites, known as wiki farms. Basically, on these sites you use the wizards and instruction for creating a wiki. The type of wiki depends on the category you use, content-focus, process-focused, community (clubs etc.), or ease of use.
In one part of the book the author details the possible organization and layout of a wiki you create on your own server or hosted server using open source wiki software that you may install.
I liked the simplicity of the explanations of the wiki details, from linking wiki pages, wiki webs and external links to other internet pages. The book also explains alternative methods of wiki markups found on the internet. The book is a bit old for Web 2.0 applications, but it seems that the wiki design has matured and has not changed much since the book was written. Most of the wiki farms sited in the book are still operating and not much different from the book illustrations. Since reading the book I am investigating which wiki I should use on my website and I found the information in the book to be very useful. After reading the book, I have done a little basic research and found that my hosted server supports a .NET 3.5 wiki programs that is written .NET C# and it is included free with my website server. So I will be installing this wiki on the NTRAK train clubs website for use of the club members to exchange model railroading information.
Are the typical wiki sites like PBworks, WikiSpaces and WetPaint considered wiki farms?
ReplyDelete@JudyNV According to how the review defines wiki farms, yes they certainly are.
ReplyDeleteGetting a wiki platform for free is not really a problem. However, it is nice that the host gave it to you for free. However, it is much easier, at least in my eyes, to host your own wiki.
The book certainly seems to better suit for those who never knew about wikis.
I did not know about the concept of wiki farms. I did know know it was just that simple to set up a wiki. I was under the impression that setting up a wiki would take a lot of hierarchy management.
ReplyDelete