On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Roan Kattouw <roan.katt...@gmail.com>wrote:
> 2009/9/25 Brian <brian.min...@colorado.edu>: > > However powerful it is, I'm not sure we can really rule out future > > incompatibility as you suggest by simply stating that we can easily > > forwardport. This feature is intended to hack a fix on top of the > usability > > issues inherent in templates. Every time we have a discussion about the > > pitfalls of wikitext the center of this discussion is templates. Even > > without parser functions they are turing complete - with them it is a > > complete usability disaster. So it seems that when we finally get around > to > > developing a consensus about the changes we want in wikitext, there will > be > > widespread agreement that we need to change templates. But so far, > without > > any clear strategy on that front, we have no idea what those changes will > > be. > > > It's important to separate template *calls* from template > *implementation*: only the latter involves ParserFunctions and all > that other ugliness. Even if and when we do completely redo the way > templates are *written* on the inside, the way they're *called* from > the outside would probably not change significantly, nor would the > concepts of parameters and types. This means redoing template syntax > does not require any changes to the XML format. > > Roan Kattouw (Catrope) > It's certainly possible, particularly with something as generic as xml, to create an extension to mediawiki that supports a variety of backends. As I've suggested, however, without any clear vision of where we want wikitext, and more generally, MediaWiki to go, then it is impossible to evaluate the efficacy of this feature, especially considering that the consequences of it haven't even been evaluated. Given the power of the backend that this feature will be kludged on top of it will fundamentally change MediaWiki is used. And yet, I just checked Strategy, there is no vision for where MediaWiki should go moving into the future, let alone wikitext. As far as I can tell this feature was cooked up in order to improve usability, and yet when you improve usability by definition you make the software easier to use and provide new affordances to your users. We have no idea whether these affordances are in line with our general vision for how users should interact with MediaWiki because we simply do not have one. I have never seen a discussion about whether the ability to create new interfaces via an interface is in line with either our lesser mission to build an encyclopedia or our greater one to bring knowledge to every human being. Lastly I would just point out that everything that can be done with this new feature will be done, and I invoke the spirit of #qif to make my point. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
