https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19298


Robert Rohde <[email protected]> changed:

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--- Comment #16 from Robert Rohde <[email protected]>  2009-06-22 03:29:07 
UTC ---
Am I the only one who looks at Lua and wonders how on Earth that is better?

I don't think embedding an entire programming language, complete with its own
syntax conventions, function library, recursion, multi-threading, and
everything else can possibly qualify as a usability enhancement.  Yes, the code
will almost certainly be arranged in a cleaner and more logical fashion, but
the barrier to be able to edit that code will be just as high if not worse
simply because you are forcing people to learn a whole new syntax and function
set.

In addition, Lua is basically a pipe dream anyway because it would be quite
hard to make it secure enough to usable.  With a full programming language, it
would be trivial to write code that would consume as much CPU and memory as you
let it have and flood Apache with 100s of megabytes of output.  Even if one
sandboxes it sufficiently to deal with these obvious cases, one would still
have to spend a lot of time considering less obvious abusive code and ways it
can interact inappropriately with the parser.  And that's on top of the
portability problems others have already mentioned.  I certainly can't see Lua
being viable any time soon.

Template syntax has a lot of problems, but I don't see how dropping an entire
programming language into wikicode is the answer.  Personally, I'd rather have
string functions now and Lua never.


I'll reserve judgment on the hypothetical abuse filter approach until there is
a more concrete proposal to discuss.  At least with that there is a chance to
integrate it in a safe and reasonable way, but I still worry that a whole new
programming syntax would be a hindrance rather than a boon to usability. 
However, unless Andrew is really gung-ho to work on such a thing, it would also
seem to be a long way off.


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