On 11/01/2008, jidanni@jidanni.org jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
TD> Well, there's /maintenance/..., but I don't know if anyone's been TD> keeping it up-to-date with changes to the rest of the code (some TD> of the maintenance scripts are quite out-of-date, I believe). You TD> could back everything up and try it and see what happens.
But things might look cool but a month later you find out you have now embedded some wrinkle into your database, who knows. That's the problem with the maintenance directory. Programs are left lying there like old cigarette butts in an ashtray. Actually more like old medicine in an open cabinet where we kids are near. http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12384 I mean it's not like we found the code on some 3rd party sidewalk. It it right there in the official distribution. Often they bear hints inside them that they are just what we want to do some job. The authors must have some inner urge to share them with us, otherwise they wouldn't be in the maintenance directory in the standard distribution. The must be eager for bug reports about what happens when we run them, which me might, upon guessing what the program will due despite lack of documentation, comments, etc.
Yeah, a bit more discipline with regards to maintenance scripts would be good. At the very least, a comment at the top of each one saying what versions of MW it will reliably work with.