On 9 July 2011 22:54, Jay Ashworth <jra(a)baylink.com> wrote:
How good is good enough?
How many pages is a replacement parser allowed to break, and still be
certified?
That is: what is the *real* spec for mediawikitext? If we say "the formal
grammar", then we are *guaranteed* to break some articles. That's the
"Right Answer", from up here at 40,000 feet, where I watch from (having
the luxury of not being responsible in any way for any of this :-), but
it will involve breaking some eggs.
I bring this back up because, the last time we had this conversation, the
answer was "nope; the new parser will have to be bug-for-bug compatible
with the current one". Or something pretty close to that.
I was thinking the answer was obvious:
Brion is about the only man in the world who can get away with
anything less than bug-for-bug compatibility, and have his answer
accepted. So it's just as well it's him doing it!
(Well, Tim could too. But Brion is an excellent answer.)
- d.