Moin 1.6.1 Goodness

Just saw on the Python Cheese Shop that MoinMoin 1.6.1 is out. A little dated (looks like it came out 2/4/08) but better late than never, so I gave it a spin.

The most obvious advantage of this latest version (or at least starting with 1.6.0) is that the portable (i.e. non-Apache requiring) DesktopEdition is now standard so that the wiki is as easy to start as "python moin.py"

I've actually used this portable version a lot over the past few years. As a consultant, when I did SCADA (or webapp) vulnerability assessments, I would create a new wiki instance for each asssement. I had a template based on our methodology so I could easily record test results or capture information from the client. I could add screen shots, file attachments, you name it. To solve the offline, distributed aspects of wikis, is as simple as rsync and it was easy enough to connect to other wiki instances saved on servers using SSH port forwarding.

Here is the full list of features, but for me this are the big ones:

• It is not not in PHP!
• It doesn't require a relational database
• It has a mature rich syntax
  
• It is portable
• Templates, templates, templates!
  

Basically the converse of these are why I hate Media Wiki (what is used by Wikipedia).

Once you get addicted to wikis it is hard to stop, so you start taking notes in wiki format with your text editor even if you don't use a wiki.