the phrase "embrace change" comes from Extreme Programming
principles, practices and methods
Working on seedwiki has revealed certain principles that we apply in our daily work.
- a wiki should be completely rebuildable into any kind of web site its contributors can imagine... which means that the computer screen should be as much as possible the contributor's space rather than the hosting company's space
- if a wiki is completely rebuildable to meet its contributor's needs, then it does not need to offer special features that allow it to be customized. In fact, special features often make the wiki less flexible and less adaptable. Therefor our job as hosts is to increase the rebuildabiltiy of our wikis and remove any unnecessary features that we can
- on the other hand, in a rebuildable wiki adding special features is fairly easy to do. Because we have given up imagining in advance what a wiki is "good for" we are willing to consider any features that seedwiki's contributors might feel they need: if the feature is wiki-like and of the size we can manage...we'll be glad to add it for you.
- there is no "typical" use for a wiki, or any set of "typcial" users. wikis are so flexible that they and their contributors cannot be grouped together into any one set of ideas about what is, or might be, going on
- its best to start with as little structure as possible and only add more structure when it proves to be needed
- even when you try, you often put too much structure in at the start of a project and can profit by removing some of it later
ken tyler 4/25/2006