Pro:

• The source would be "open" in the true sense of the word.
• You could start a discussion in the source itself.
• You wouldn't have to start an external program (Visual Studio) to have the source available.

Con:

• The source would be too "open", if anybody would change anything, the source might become useless.
• Only the last version of the sources would be available, currently there is no possibility to "label" parts of the source.
• At the moment it would take too long to retrieve all the sources one by one. If you use a web spider tool it might be possible, but then you'd have the HTML, not the source itself. That could of course be fixed by running another tool, that gets the text as it is displayed in the browser.
• If you would start a discussion in the source itself, you would have to find a way to filter out those comments. Or the comments would have to be in the C# "//" format.

I think it's possible, but it would be more useful for the person who has access to the .Wiki files. That way you could write a script that retrieves the source and puts it back in a directory structure. Or someone would have to make a Wiki script that does that. -- WouterCX

"Collaborate on the sources"

Maybe, I just thought, the sources should only be used to discuss about the sources themselves. -- WouterCX

The last version of the source could only be guarded if there are no changes on it. The administrator would put the sources on the wiki only once. Then everybody can see that there are no changes. Then, when there's a new version, delete the file, and recreate it. -- WouterCX

The idea could only work in a setting where you have users that you can restrict with Windows Authentication. -- WouterCX

Check-in / Check-out

You would need a command that says "Checkout this file to me". Just like the "delete" command. You could put this on the top of the page to indicate to FlexWiki that it should be locked. -- WouterCX

Conclusion so far

I think a Flexwiki "Sourcedatabase" would be very handy to use as a way to collaborate on sourcecode. Everybody would be able to comment on / improve the sourcecode. This could be very powerful, especially on Open Source projects. I think it would not be a very good idea to use Flexwiki as a real source database. There would be too many restrictions on the use of it, the risk of making mistakes would be too high. -- WouterCX

Comments

To me, wiki is a way to author interconnected HTML pages, quickly. That's what it's good at. It's bad at just about everything else. Systems like CVS, Subversion, and even (yick) SourceSafe, already solve the problem of collaborative source editing with versioning. Not to mention the fact that the wiki web experience is a pretty crappy way to edit source when compared with environments like VS that give syntax highlighting, autocompletion, etc.

I do encourage you to continue your experiment, but I can't say I have much hope for a successful outcome. -- CraigAndera [2004-07-19]

Craig, the difference between Wiki on the one side and CVS, Subversion and Sourcesafe on the other side is, that those systems don't have "collaborative source editing" as far as I know (I only know SourceSafe). I mean, you can leave comments when you check-in your code. But it's not possible to use the source database as a "discussion place".

At the moment, I see it this way: Wiki is good at everything that involves "collaboration". SourceSafe and others are good at versioning. What Wiki could be used for in this case, is a sort of "transition stage" between the development and the moment you check-in your code in SourceSafe/CVS, whatever. Imagine this: a developer writes a piece of code. He puts it on the Wiki. Other developers look at his code (all over the world), and they comment on it /discuss it between the code lines. Just like the "eXtreme Programming" idea. Has anybody seen anything like this somewhere else? -- WouterCX [2004-07-20]

So, I'd disagree with you on one major point: that "wiki is good at everything that involves "collaboration". Frankly, my opinion is that it's mostly good for collaboratively generating documentation. For having discussions, doing design, or anything that doesn't basically look like documentation, it's not that great.

I do agree that a wiki is more appropriate for discussions about source code than it is for actually collaboratively writing source code, but that doesn't make it good at it...just less bad. This is, of course, merely my opinion: I could be entirely wrong. Like I said, I'm curious to see how your experiment works out. -- CraigAndera [2004-07-20]

I like the idea. The check-in/check-out (forced expiry after x hours?) would work, and reflects the way a lot of us manage mult-programmer projects ("Joe, I'm working on the Calendar class today, don't upload anything on that until I finsh and sign the code back in.") If it turns out to be unfeasable (I've never developed in true open source environment) and ppl coding don't want to use it this way, I do agree it would be a great way to document, analyze, discuss and even work out kinks in tricky areas of the code (assuming such exist). -- ToddSturgeon [2004-10-25]

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