It occurred to me that this may also be relevant here, given the apparently pending deletion of content in: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Source_code
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com Date: Jun 19, 2006 5:03 AM Subject: Literate Programs wiki To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org, Wikimedia textbook discussion textbook-l@wikimedia.org
A very interesting wiki I just discovered: http://en.literateprograms.org/LiteratePrograms:Welcome
They allow you to post source code of any computer program in any language, comment it, etc. They have a very neat extension which allows you to download a tarball of all the programs documented on a particular page. The code can be broken up into pieces so that individual sections of a program can be discussed in more detail. The pieces on a page can then be associated with files using an internal transclusion.
The extension pieces the stuff together again. It also does syntax highlighting for a lot of languages.
I'm posting this to textbook-l and wikipedia-l because I know there are a lot of computer programming related pages on both wikis that could make use of this resource. Given the URL, the project also seems to be aiming for multilinguality. I actually think it would make a nice addition to the Wikimedia project family, if a bit specialized.
Erik
On 6/18/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
It occurred to me that this may also be relevant here, given the apparently pending deletion of content in: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Source_code
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com Date: Jun 19, 2006 5:03 AM Subject: Literate Programs wiki To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org, Wikimedia textbook discussion textbook-l@wikimedia.org
A very interesting wiki I just discovered: http://en.literateprograms.org/LiteratePrograms:Welcome
They allow you to post source code of any computer program in any language, comment it, etc. They have a very neat extension which allows you to download a tarball of all the programs documented on a particular page. The code can be broken up into pieces so that individual sections of a program can be discussed in more detail. The pieces on a page can then be associated with files using an internal transclusion.
The extension pieces the stuff together again. It also does syntax highlighting for a lot of languages.
I'm posting this to textbook-l and wikipedia-l because I know there are a lot of computer programming related pages on both wikis that could make use of this resource. Given the URL, the project also seems to be aiming for multilinguality. I actually think it would make a nice addition to the Wikimedia project family, if a bit specialized.
Erik
Wow, thanks for finding this, Erik. This is a very interesting wiki. If Wikibooks doesn't take all of our source code, I would definitely be open to uploading it there, as many of the programs are for instructive purposes as well (they've got Hello World in about 1,000 different programming languages). Actually, though, maybe it would be beneficial to add it to LiterateWiki *anyway* given what Literate Programs can do with source code...
I actually think it would make a nice addition to the Wikimedia project family, if a bit specialized.
I would agree to that, and would support such a proposal. It would finally end the problems that all Wikimedia projects have faced or will face at some point or another regarding source code, but, more importantly, it would give WMF an outlet for an open source code wiki. It seems as if Literate Programs' mission is reasonably similar to ours--only a little tweaking in the mission statements and a complete overhaul of the copyright licensing would be needed to make this a suitable candidate for a WMF project.
On 6/19/06, Ryan Dabler zhaladshar@gmail.com wrote:
I would agree to that, and would support such a proposal. It would finally end the problems that all Wikimedia projects have faced or will face at some point or another regarding source code, but, more importantly, it would give WMF an outlet for an open source code wiki. It seems as if Literate Programs' mission is reasonably similar to ours--only a little tweaking in the mission statements and a complete overhaul of the copyright licensing would be needed to make this a suitable candidate for a WMF project.
I'm not sure a complete overhaul of the licensing would be necessary. Without getting into a copyleft vs. BSD style argument, the MIT/X11 license chosen is at least one specific for source code -- whereas the GFDL is not. Furthermore, Wikimedia has in the past demonstrated some flexibility in choosing the licensing model most appropriate for our content. Wikinews is CC-BY (no copyleft) in part because we want our content to be maximally reused, and the potential for copyleft to kick in on news content that expires quickly is relatively small.
Deco (the founder of the wiki) seems to be happy for it to be independent for now, but it's certainly something to keep in mind, I think.
Erik
On 6/19/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure a complete overhaul of the licensing would be necessary. Without getting into a copyleft vs. BSD style argument, the MIT/X11 license chosen is at least one specific for source code -- whereas the GFDL is not. Furthermore, Wikimedia has in the past demonstrated some flexibility in choosing the licensing model most appropriate for our content. Wikinews is CC-BY (no copyleft) in part because we want our content to be maximally reused, and the potential for copyleft to kick in on news content that expires quickly is relatively small.
Ah, my ignorace shows. I thought all WMF projects were GFDL; thanks for correcting me. So, I amend my statement about overhauling the copyright policy, as it could work with the MIT/X11 license. Too bad on not making it a sister project at this time, although I'll be sure to point the source code junkies their way when we run into them.
Z
Ryan Dabler wrote:
Wow, thanks for finding this, Erik. This is a very interesting wiki. If Wikibooks doesn't take all of our source code, I would definitely be open to uploading it there, as many of the programs are for instructive purposes as well (they've got Hello World in about 1,000 different programming languages).
An appropriate hell for that idea would be to be forced to listen to Disney Co.'s "It's a Small World After All" over and over again for eternity. :-)
Ec
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