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The GitHub wiki is an anti-pattern (2022)

175 points · 112 comments · ibobev

  1. codazoda · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm no fan of GitHub add-ons and I agree with the premise here but...

    I can think of one other possibility. It's easier to write in a wiki via the browser. I can open that on my phone and edit docs. I can open it in my browser and edit docs.

    On desktop it's a tiny bit more to pull the repo and open it in your editor (and you might already be there) but that tiny bit can be enough to stop you from writing documentation. For me, writing documentation must be totally painless so that I'll actually do it.

    Why am I not a fan of the add-ons like PR's, wiki's, discussions, projects, and issues? Because they each introduce vendor lock-in to varying degrees.

    1. sheept · · focus · HN ↗
      Wikis don’t have as much vendor lock-in as other Github features since they’re just git repos,[0] so you can clone and push the wiki elsewhere.

      [0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.github.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;communities&#x2F;documenting-your-project-with-wikis&#x2F;adding-or-editing-wiki-pages#adding-or-editing-wiki-pages-locally" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.github.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;communities&#x2F;documenting-your-proj...

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