From: Stuart Ellis <stuart@...>
Date: 2010-06-04T16:21:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Documenting Ruby 1.9: Ebook or Wiki?

On 4 Jun 2010, at 05:17, Mohit Sindhwani wrote:

> On 4/6/2010 11:55 AM, Run Paint Run Run wrote:
>>> I'd say wiki - if it's in Markdown or Textile, it could be easy enough to
>>> wget everything and make it an acceptable PDF/ e-book style file every now
>>> and then?
>>>     
>> Not really. They're quite distinct styles. An offline wiki is trivial,
>> certainly, but it won't have the structure and coherency of a book.
>> 
>> 
>>   
> 
> Of course, you're the project owner :P so you know best...
> But, I'm of the opinion that even in a wiki, we could have a table of contents that would map roughly to chapters and sections so that the coherency is maintained.  Someone would need to help to keep the contents categorized into a hierarchy (something that books demand and wikis ignore) such that it is coherent.
> 
> I guess I'm really pushing for an "editable" e-book... that said, since the source is in git and Markdown (I wish it could be TexTile), changes can be made at source though the barrier is slightly higher..
> 
> Cheers,
> Mohit.
> 4/6/2010 | 12:16 PM.
> 

-1 to Wiki. I was on a project that tried the idea of developing larger documents with a Wiki, and it just sucked. Wiki UIs are mainly designed for short bits of text, so you end up copying text into an editor, and then double-checking that the page hadn't been edited, and then pasting it back. Edits are often of low quality, one way or another, and need either fact-checking or revision to integrate them into the text to keep it coherent, which is tedious.

---
Stuart Ellis
stuart@stuartellis.eu