https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22555
--- Comment #9 from Philippe Verdy <verd...@wanadoo.fr> 2010-10-10 20:49:40 UTC --- Given the VERY HUGE usage of string manipulation templates in English Wikipedia, the past decision to NOT apply support for more efficient string manipulation parser functions in Wikipedia should be reconsidered. The argument that "Mediawiki is not a programming language" proves to be wrong, because Mediawiki is already used extensively in a way that needs these string functions, but using very ugly template hacks, which are already trying to bypass the decision of not using such "programming language" features on almost all article pages (infoboxes and stub templates are present almost everywhere, sometimes several times on the same page). Clearly this demonstrates that those string parser functions are really needed and it would be in fact more reasonnable to allow them directly as parser functions, in order to obsolete all these ugly [[en:category:String manipulation templates]] (str left, str right, trunc, str len, str rightc, str index, and so on...), or rewrite their implementation in a much more efficient way for helping the transition. After all, Mediawiki is already and basically a janguage for generating complex texts, templates are already programming features. in comparison, WordPress already has these natural builtin functions, and sites built with WordPress are still not critized for abusing these basic string manipulation functions. This is the same rationale that was applied when #expr support was added, and then slightly extended to support a few trigonometric functions and safer conversions to integers (less limited and bogous than the "round" operator). Let's be pragmatic. A decision to not implement these features has already been bypassed extensively throughout English Wikipedia that already wants these functions and use them in almost all its articles of its default namespace (just count the number of pages (and the thousands of infobox an stub templates) already using these ugly string templates ! -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are the assignee for the bug. You are on the CC list for the bug. _______________________________________________ Wikibugs-l mailing list Wikibugs-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikibugs-l
