Wiki Os Discussion

[the discussion about WikiOs]

I wish more people would spend some time thinking these things through properly. Why don't more people design or even build wiki-based things before writing wildly ambitious but vague pages here. Sorry if this bothers anyone. -- (one of the convinced WikiReductionists)

Just as you, I wish more people would spend some time thinking these things through, which is why we created this page. If you are so inclined, please add your own thoughts on the topic, instead of going Meta, and the page will become more concrete pretty quickly. - As to "wildly ambitious": I contest that. - but let's not limit our discussion prematurely. --FalkBruegmann

I certainly agree about the strength of a single, powerful organising concept in software design. (e.g. the "file" in Unix, the "object" in Smalltalk. It's not usually the "SimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork", but it's often elegant and powerful.) I don't really understand what such an operating system would do. Is this really about operating systems? It sounds as though you're advocating an interesting kind of application server (WikiApplicationServer?) rather than an operating system. --

"since objects are strictly more powerful than files (you can implement files with objects but not the other way around), it's possible for an object-oriented storage system to be simpler to use." [from WikiOs]

You can implement objects with files, it can be as naive as serializing each object to a different file. -- FabioMascarenhas

Imagine not storing a mere MP3 file but storing a song''. The decoder would be attached to the file; that way embedding the objects would be trivial. That's the difference.

By the way, MacOs also attempted to make files somewhat "objectified" with header information. -- SunirShah''

I think it's not about how to store the file, but where to store the file. I don't want to store a song in a folder called "MP3s". I want to store it somewhere and have more than one folder in which it then appears, like /groups/... and /moods/... and /rock/... . And these Folders shouldn't be statik like the normal filesystem but more dynamic like Wiki! -- RalfMueller

I believe this is what Oracles IFS tries to provide - the Database IS the file system (and since the DB is now an ORDBMS, everything is objects too) add the ability to write and store Java directly in the DB and there we have a pretty neat system (in theory anyway - Oracle is prone to obfuscation) -- muppet

I don't understand what this stuff has to do with Wiki. Or, really, what it is actually saying at all. Is it just replacing a hierarchical name system with a flat one? Why is that good? What makes you think it can scale?

Wiki pages are not objects. They have no opaque state, no message dispatching. Pages here don't have backlinks. Are you using some different Wiki? -- DaveHarris

Sorry, what do you mean, pages don't have backlinks? That's what the title links are for, right?! --FalkBruegmann

The title link is just a search facility. Microsoft Windows has a search facility. What's the big deal? -- DaveHarris

So Microsoft Windows already is a Wiki :-P -- PeterSchaefer

I can locate things in my OS more easily than I can in Wiki. Links between files owned by disparate applications is what COM, SOM etc give us. A distinguishing feature of Wiki is that the content is essentially text, and adding the links disrupts the content. That's fine for Wiki but I don't see why I'd want a whole OS built that way. I probably shouldn't be so negative so early in the creative process, but I don't yet feel you've articulated your vision in a way I can understand. -- DaveHarris

GoodQuestions?. ObjectOrientation is used here as the means to provide an interface, which allows a part of the system to be exchanged with another component providing the same interface. What Wiki can contribute to this view is the ability of users to modify parts of the OS at any time. ---PeterSchaefer

(playing DevilsAdvocate) What you haven't explained is how a WikiOs follows from some necessity instead of a desire to "twirl your PropellerBeanie" so to speak. Is it just a cool feature, or something that really fundamentally solves a problem? If you can identify the problem, then we should have a go at DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork. -- SunirShah

OK, but are you sure that a hierarchical file system is indeed the simplest thing? I guess this depends on the UserStories, so here are a couple for a "data storage system":

Is this too much to ask? -- StephanHouben

No, use VMS --AlanFrancis

[Re: Lifestream-Papers]

Interesting paper. I find the MIT query-like ls interesting. I like to sort files by modification date in folder organized file systems. You can make ls sort by time, for example. In the internet, it would be nice to get files sorted by download time/latency.

Is Wiki bound to one server?

what about a distributed Wiki? Something like Gnutella? Currently there are more than this Wiki on the net. Why not connecting them with some simple rules and get one big organic wiki? These rules could be something like:

-- RalfMueller

Why would you need more than one Wiki ? I like the idea of moving pages between Wikis by affinity. On the other hand, I thought a DistributedWiki would be organized by topic, so my UserStory goes like this:

I read Wiki and often want to look up java elements. A good place for this would be the JavaDocs?. So, i go to my Wiki preferences, check the boxes with: 

   * x links from Wiki
   * x links from JavaDocs?
And after this, I get all words from the Wiki pages and the classes from JavaDocs? like BufferedInputStream? as links.

-- PeterSchaefer

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