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> This makes no sense given that you get the same payoff by using something like Atlassian's wiki. No git, no markdown, none of this nonsense, users can just im
by pxc 4y ago
> This makes no sense given that you get the same payoff by using something like Atlassian's wiki. No git, no markdown, none of this nonsense, users can just immediately hit the ground running with advanced formatting support and version history.
Except that like all WYSIWYG editors, Confluence's editor is buggy and unpredictable. You can only use it in a browser. Because it doesn't even have a 'raw' editing mode anymore, you can't work around the WYSIWYG editor when it's broken. Uploading or converting to it from external sources is a PITA, when it's even possible.
If you want technical documentation that developers are going to maintain, it has to be a joy to work with in their own editors.
WYSIWYG isn't actually better. It's a broken paradigm, and that's why every single attempt to move Wikipedia over to a WYSIWYG editor has failed.
- phailhaus 4y ago> If you want technical documentation that developers are going to maintain, it has to be a joy to work with in their own editors. Not what we're talking about here though, OP is suggesting it's reasonable to teach business analysts markdown and git for all company documentation.
- pxc 4y agoIt's unlikely that they'll actually use Git, but teaching them Markdown is absolutely doable. And any modern Git forge will let you edit a Git-based wiki in the web UI without knowing what a commit is.
- phailhaus 4y ago"I want to insert an image." Whoops, you're already in deep trouble. "I want to resize it." Even worse! These are table stakes features that everyone expects to work out of the box. If you don't give them a WSIWYG editor that does all of this for you automatically, it's DOA.
- pxc 4y agoYou don't need WYSIWYG for dragging and dropping images into a document, or even for resizing them. WYSIWYG is an approach to layout and formatting, not the only alternative to writing LaTeX in a terminal-bound text editor.
- koonsolo 4y agoYou are probably arguing with another developer here. Imagine having this same discussion with some business person who uses MS Excel and Word all the time, and trying to convince them that your text only thing where you can't easily add a chart coming from Excel is better than what they are currently using. Would love to see how that conversation goes.