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WhichFarmToUse

Summary: different horses for different courses

• the PmWiki.WikiFarm is more like a wiki colony -- each field is independent of the others (as a diversified agribusiness might run many independent farming operations)
• the Cookbook.WikiFarm is more like a family farm -- each field is connected to its neighboring fields and the home area
• it is possible to install the CookBook wiki farm in a field of a PmWiki farm and have it "just work"

You can:

• use the PmWiki farm to establish a colony of independent wikis
• use the CookBook farm to turn an independent wiki (which may or may not be part of a colony) into a family farm
• turn a wiki that's part of a colony into a family farm
• turn a wiki that's a family farm into part of a colony

<longDiscussion>

Both implementations:

• allow one implementation of PmWiki to run multiple wikis (called fields)
• support farm-wide and field-wide customisations (eg to enable or disable uploads)
• require no new markup

But:

• fields in a colony are independent (clicking the logo takes you to the field home page and there is no obvious connection to other fields; there is no visual cue that this field is part of a farm)
• fields on a family farm are connected (clicking the logo takes you to the farm home page, there's a new link to the field home page, and each field has links to adjacent fields)
• groups in a colony are independent (there is a shared wikilib.d, but if you edit and save one of these pages, the saved version becomes local to that field; each field has its own Profiles group; local group customisations are unique to a field)
• groups in a family farm can be shared (by default, PmWiki and Profiles are shared across all fields, like "the commons"; the same local customisation can be applied to all groups of the same name in different fields, if desired)
• fields in a colony can be administered quite independently of one another (an administrator of Field A may have no access to Field B)
• fields on a family farm can be administered together (an administrator for Field A has access to configuration details of other fields)
• adding a field to a colony requires an administrator to set it up
  A slight correction--adding a field to a colony requires a field administrator to set it up. Once the farm administrator has set up the farm, anyone with an account on the server can generally set up their own field in the farm.
• adding a field to a family farm is done by making a link to it on the FarmPage
• you can link to another field in a colony if the administrator has set up suitable PmWiki/InterMap references
• you can link to another field on a family farm as soon as it's defined on the farm page; the farm script detects whether the page exists or not, and formats the link accordingly

The 2 implementations meet different and complementary needs, but they are both called wiki farms.

The PmWiki farm is more like a wiki colony -- each wiki field maintains its independence, while all share common code resources. Visitors to one field may not be aware that other fields exist. The CookBook farm is more like a family farm -- each field grows its own crops, but they are all visibly part of the same farm. Visitors see the field as part of something bigger.

So (PmWiki/PmWikiPhilosophy 3) the one you choose will depend on what you want to achieve. You might even need both.

Would it be a good idea to have one consolidated approach that covers the whole spectrum of requirements? There are arguments both for and against. On balance, I think they are better left separate for now, given that they are mutually compatible.

A wiki farm is only a model:

    "All models are wrong; some are useful."

</longDiscussion> pmwiki-2.2.10 -- Last modified by {{}}?

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