JeroenVet
Namaste,
I am a Dutch independent consultant based in Shanghai who is suffering from a serious bout of Wikimania. Use wikis mainly as platforms to support project work. Started out with TWiki. In fact that got me introduced to the whole concept of Open Source software, of which I am now a strong advocate. I love the spirit of community, sharing and contributing. I use Kubuntu and Open Source for nearly all my computing needs now (unfortunately in China you are often forced to use M$ software for things like Internet banking and even for many government web sites).
Althoug TWiki is very feature rich, I am not a great fan of Perl. That language seems unnecessary cryptic. I like Ruby but this is still a bit immature compared to Python and to me it is not apparent what the advantages are of Ruby over Python other than perhaps the Ruby on Rails framework. Anyhow there does not seem to be a mature Wiki engine based on Ruby, although Instiki looks promising. I am still just a beginner in Python but it has a good feel. Relatively easy to learn and intuitive. Perhaps this is because it is a Dutch invention 
! TWiki also seems to have steered away from the original Wiki philosophy too much. With all the extra features, it is becoming more of a web application framework, shielding the user often from editing the raw text. That is why I switched to MoinMoin. This is a cleaner application and the code is much easier to understand, looks better too.
I am looking forward to version 2.0 of MoinMoin though. It promises to implement SQLalchemy. I think the idea of having flat files as data storage is no longer tenable nowadays. You quickly discover that not all wiki pages are the same. You want to add attributes to your pages, or introduce data structures like tasks, events, tags and so on and then you immediately think database. The dictionary and category systems of MoinMoin can help but impose too many limitations. Also you want to be able to show data from a database of an another application in your wiki like contact data etc.
Would like to conclude this by expressing my appreciation to all the good people that made MoinMoin a reality, showing commendable selfless spirit in their sacrifice of time and energy. Kudos to you all!
Have a good one! -- JeroenVet 2009-08-13 04:01:17
Email: <jeroen DOT vet AT TOTALLYSPAMFREE gmail DOT com>