I recently published an article entitled "Are we living in an insane world?", which questioned the usefulness of textbooks created in the same way as Wikipedia is -- and regular visitors to this website will be aware of my views about that! (See, for example, "Just because you *can* doesn't mean you *should*".)

I've just come across a very good article dealing with the pros and cons (mainly the cons, actually) of Wikipedia published by The Register. The title of this article comes from a quote in the article. Interestingly enough, a writer makes a similar point as I do about the (spurious) comparison between Wikipedia, and wiki textbooks, and open source software; to quote the article:

"It's worth reflecting on the reason Wiki-kernel would never fly: code actually has to work, not merely be written."

What do you think? Please leave a comment.