Hi all,
I have been talking to many third-party yas part of my WMF internship in
the last few weeks and one the main concerns they express is the lack of
stability in the PHP classes MediaWiki exposes from version to version. The
frequent changes in what I would call the PHP-API makes extentions
developement and maintenance much more difficult with compatibility from
version to version becoming a problem. Solving the problem would probably
result in the development of more extensions, easier maintenance, less
hacks to core and more users upgrading to the latest MediaWiki version. I
am sure WMF developers are facing similar issues especially with projects
like WikiData going on.
My question is: With the given technical heritage that MediaWiki carries,
is it possible to have a (relatively) stable set of PHP classes defined,
with a pledge not to change them in the next X releases or at least with
some longer deprecation time? What would maintaining such a PHP-API entail?
How difficult is it given the vast number of dependancies in MediaWiki
code? Does it require restructuring a lot of the current core code? Do you
think it should be a definite goal for WMF?
Thank you.
Mariya