[pmwiki-users] Config group (Was: Edit page extensions)

[Joachim Durchholz]

Hans wrote:

> Monday, April 25, 2005, 10:03:04 PM, Patrick wrote:
> 
>> But yes, perhaps "PmWikiConfig" is best overall -- very little
>> chance for confusion or misinterpretation.  Either that or
>> "SiteConfig".
> 
> Please keep it short! I prefer group names which are short and which 
> have no wiki camel letters. There is no need for camel case in group 
> names i think, as they are not used like WikiWords as links by 
> themselves (now I will be told that they may be used that way, but
> who does?).

Some do. I'd like to keep that option.

Though that's not a serious problem: [[wikigroupname]] would create a
link regardless.

> Anyway i keep tripping over typing PmWiki, more often I type Pmwiki.

Agreed. I'd like to have group and page names case-insensitive myself. 
(Not sure about ramifications though. And it's certainly an incompatible 
change unless PmWiki is already case-insensitive - I never actually 
checked *gg*)

> So why not call the group just Config? or Configurations.

Because people may want to have Config or Configuration or
Configurations as names for normal groups.

It's really a question of keeping the name space clean. If PmWiki has a
fixed policy of "group names like PmWiki* are reserved for PmWiki's
internal use", people know what to expect. If they don't create pages
named PmWiki*.*, they won't be in for nasty surprises when upgrading.

Consider what happens if somebody has a 1.0 wiki with a Config group,
and he upgrades to 2.0 which suddenly places all kinds of special
meanings on the pages in it. Renaming would be an option, but the admin
would still have to tell everybody to change links into what was the
Config group.

Now if we're sure that PmWiki*.* is special and reserved, all the search
functions can easily filter these pages out. Recipes can ignore or
specially process these pages. And they have a far better chance to stay
compatible with future releases.

Having to type a longer group name (very, very occasionally) is a small
price to pay for that IMHO. (YMMV)

Regards,
Jo