One of my coworkers wanted to know how opensource developers communicate. How is distributed development accomplished. My answer was simply: Mailing Lists. But I have a feeling that they are soon to be replaced by blogs and wikis, especially in the corporate environment.
I think wikis are really starting to play a big role in how communication is maintained, not to mention blogs. I really do think that corporate blogging is going to become a primary way that developers keep each other up to date.
The question that always comes up is "Why?" Why is a wiki better than email? Emails get lost. Emails end up being client side. If I say something to Becky in an email, then noone else benefits from that email except for Becky. However if I blog about the answer, six months later when someone else has the same question, they will have something to search against to get answers.
Granted, a forum provides this same mechanism, however it is hard to determine who the real experts are in a forum. If Adam continues to answer most of the questions, then Adam is going to be seen as the expert. However if we were all blogging, and linking to each other, then the more people that point to your site or reference what you say will show that you are the expert. Not because you answered the most questions on the forum, but because you have posted the most answers to your blog to hard problems that no one is really asking about.
You will blog about AOP. I will blog about the pain it is to get a development network. Scott will blog about "expecting Java developers to know SQL should be expected" :)
After the blogs start popping up, the aggregators will show and that is when the fun begins. You will be notified when I have updated my site and you will read about whatever it is that is on my mind today or at this moment. I might have a problem and you can answer it from your blog, which will automatically update my blog as well.
Here are a couple of good wiki examples:
The original wiki: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWeb
Erik Thauvin's Wiki: http://www.thauvin.net/wiki/
OpenSymphony Wiki: http://wiki.opensymphony.com/space/start
SnipSnap: http://snipsnap.org
Confluence Wiki: http://confluence.atlassian.com
Blogs
Martin Fowler's Bliki (both blog and wiki)
Erik Hatcher's Blog
Erik Thauvin's Blog
Matt Raible's Blog
The Fishbowl (Charles)
Roller Blog
Nu Cardboard
rebelutionary
Russell Beattie
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