Matthew Weir O'Phinney makes a few comments today about this post from Paul Jones about the documentation of PEAR and how a Wiki might just be the method of choice for keeping it all under control.

Paul Jones has written an interesting piece about documentation in the PEAR project, in which he argues very convincingly for using wikis for end user documentation.

I actually think that last point bears repeating: using wikis for end user documentation. I talked to Paul about this issue at php|Tropics, and both of us use phpDocumentor quite religiously. However, API documentation is very different from end user documentation. And the issue with documentation at the PEAR project has to do with the fact that there are many projects with little or no end user documentation -- which often makes it difficult for a developer to determine how a module might be used.

Prat of his reason for agreement on the matter is the almost painful methods that have to be used currently to maintian the DocBook format that the manual is in. He also poses the thought that since PHP was "written to create web pages", doesn't it just make sense to use the language of the web (HTML) to document it?

Would making the documentation as easy to edit as a wiki really be the answer to getting more (and better) documentation for the PEAR project(s)?