[WikiEN-l] MediaWiki is getting a new programming language

[stevertigo]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 9:23 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:

The fact that the "techies" do not actively seek out community input
> is why we ended up with ParserFunctions. Furthermore these changes are
> supposed to be 'community' decisions. The 'techies' are also not the
> people who edit Wikipedia articles the most. They write code, fix
> servers etc...


You are not actually correct. Things develop the way they do because they
arise as the natural next step. All things improve incrementally, and in
accord with available tools and available understanding. You're too young to
remember what CamelCase is aren't you?

More technically minded
> folks believe that they can sit down and powwow about the technically best
> solution to a problem and can't even imagine what sort of input the
> community could possibly provide. It's totally backwards. The conversation
> should start on WikiEN-l, not wikitech-l. You have to first adequately
> characterize a problem before you start implementing solutions.


While you are certainly right about this idea that techs can get stuck in
certain places that non-tech insights could help with, you are wrong about
certain other things. The facts are: They deal with a lot already, they know
the work involved for any request, they understand the concepts well enough
to know what works and what doesn't, they can reconceptualize ideas and
solutions in ways that the rest of us cannot (seen this a dozen times here),
and they know very well where the tipping point is when things need to get
to the next step.

If there's a technical idea that the tech and general communities need to
interface about, write it up in detail on the meta wiki, and give us a link.
[[meta:New parser language]] or [[meta:New backend scripting language]]
might work.

-Stevertigo


PS: Other comments and responses:

The title says it all - MediaWiki is getting a new programming language.
>

What does that even mean? That everything in PHP code will be rewritten in
Python? Context for non-techies means something you may not yet understand.


It was wholly sufficient.


Your initial message, unlike perhaps your typical coded program, was neither
wholly sufficient nor actually sufficient. "Template parser functions" for
example, as Tom said, would have provided context.

I assume, having signed up to this list, that you understand what
> wikitech-l is and where it is located
>

1) Dont assume anything. 2) Always provide a link. 3) "Location" does not by
itself or in context indicate any relevance. 4) Terseness of the type you
provide does not facilitate *any understanding.