Hi!
Over the next fiscal year, the Wikimedia Foundation Readers Web team will be making technical improvements to the mobile web codebases (MobileFrontend and MinervaNeue).
The project, which we’re calling ‘Invest in the MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue frontend architecture’, contained in Output 2.7 of the Platform Evolution CDP [1], is currently in its specification and planning stages. The outcomes of the project are:
1. Improve developer experience (on-boarding, maintenance, development) 2. Reduce technical debt and make production improvements 3. Separate presentation and logic 4. Make Minerva and MobileFrontend better citizens of the MediaWiki ecosystem
MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue, which power the Wikimedia mobile sites, make heavy use of client-side UIs with templates, CSS and JavaScript. Over the past eight years of developing a mobile-first wiki experience we have learnt and frontend technology has evolved. We will improve and modernize the code bases to continue supporting our mobile web users in the future. Please see Outcomes 1, 2 and 3 in the wiki page for more detail.
Minerva will become an independent skin without a dependency on MobileFrontend, and vice versa. Please see Outcome 4 in the wiki page for more detail.
Please visit the project page on MediaWiki.org to learn more about the outcomes and outputs, and share your questions. [2]
N.B. This project is distinct from “Output 3.1: Contribution tools on mobile web via an existing mediawiki skin” [3], described in the FY 2018-2019 plan.
_____________________ Joaquin Oltra Hernandez Senior Software Engineer, Readers Web
[1]: https://wikifarm.wmflabs.org/platformevolution/index.php/Plan:FY18-19/2/7 [2]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/Invest_in_the_MobileFron...
[3]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2018-2019/A...
I really like all of these goals, but I have to say that many of them seem to be a recurring theme (which to me is understandable, but maybe not to others). I pose to you an additional challenge.. Don't do this just to mobilefrontend/minervaneue. Do it to a component of core/an extension as well (i'd pick something small, oft used, but not the best maintained).
1. This will help expose you to any challenges that other parts of the ecosystem have in following your direction. 2. It will show the way. Examples are good teaching methods. 3. A component that needs it, but might otherwise not get it, will get some TLC 4. It will close the mobile/desktop gap for whatever component you pick 5. it will close the mobile/desktop gap in general.
Because I think that if you don't expand on your target codebase, the risk will be that you remain more isolated than you should be.
DJ
On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 7:40 PM, Joaquin Oltra Hernandez jhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi!
Over the next fiscal year, the Wikimedia Foundation Readers Web team will be making technical improvements to the mobile web codebases (MobileFrontend and MinervaNeue).
The project, which we’re calling ‘Invest in the MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue frontend architecture’, contained in Output 2.7 of the Platform Evolution CDP [1], is currently in its specification and planning stages. The outcomes of the project are:
- Improve developer experience (on-boarding, maintenance, development)
- Reduce technical debt and make production improvements
- Separate presentation and logic
- Make Minerva and MobileFrontend better citizens of the MediaWiki
ecosystem
MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue, which power the Wikimedia mobile sites, make heavy use of client-side UIs with templates, CSS and JavaScript. Over the past eight years of developing a mobile-first wiki experience we have learnt and frontend technology has evolved. We will improve and modernize the code bases to continue supporting our mobile web users in the future. Please see Outcomes 1, 2 and 3 in the wiki page for more detail.
Minerva will become an independent skin without a dependency on MobileFrontend, and vice versa. Please see Outcome 4 in the wiki page for more detail.
Please visit the project page on MediaWiki.org to learn more about the outcomes and outputs, and share your questions. [2]
N.B. This project is distinct from “Output 3.1: Contribution tools on mobile web via an existing mediawiki skin” [3], described in the FY 2018-2019 plan.
Joaquin Oltra Hernandez Senior Software Engineer, Readers Web
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Thanks for the kind words DJ.
I want to clarify that the Readers Web team stopped being the Mobile Web team years ago, and doesn't only work on the mobile web extension and skin. We do routinely work on a variety of projects and codebases depending on our user and maintenance needs.
That said, we care a lot about mobile web users, and we do believe that the skin and extension that half of the visitors use need to be future proof, so we are very happy to have room to tackle this technical project.
I understand that there may be some preconceptions about this team from previous times, but almost no one remains from those times. We will do more efforts to explain what the pieces and their responsibilities are going forward, so that the mobile web understanding spreads and is shared by as many people as possible.
On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 11:05 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman < d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com> wrote:
I really like all of these goals, but I have to say that many of them seem to be a recurring theme (which to me is understandable, but maybe not to others). I pose to you an additional challenge.. Don't do this just to mobilefrontend/minervaneue. Do it to a component of core/an extension as well (i'd pick something small, oft used, but not the best maintained).
- This will help expose you to any challenges that other parts of the
ecosystem have in following your direction. 2. It will show the way. Examples are good teaching methods. 3. A component that needs it, but might otherwise not get it, will get some TLC 4. It will close the mobile/desktop gap for whatever component you pick 5. it will close the mobile/desktop gap in general.
Because I think that if you don't expand on your target codebase, the risk will be that you remain more isolated than you should be.
DJ
On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 7:40 PM, Joaquin Oltra Hernandez jhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi!
Over the next fiscal year, the Wikimedia Foundation Readers Web team
will be
making technical improvements to the mobile web codebases (MobileFrontend and MinervaNeue).
The project, which we’re calling ‘Invest in the MobileFrontend &
MinervaNeue
frontend architecture’, contained in Output 2.7 of the Platform Evolution CDP [1], is currently in its specification and planning stages. The
outcomes
of the project are:
- Improve developer experience (on-boarding, maintenance, development)
- Reduce technical debt and make production improvements
- Separate presentation and logic
- Make Minerva and MobileFrontend better citizens of the MediaWiki
ecosystem
MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue, which power the Wikimedia mobile sites,
make
heavy use of client-side UIs with templates, CSS and JavaScript. Over the past eight years of developing a mobile-first wiki experience we have
learnt
and frontend technology has evolved. We will improve and modernize the
code
bases to continue supporting our mobile web users in the future. Please
see
Outcomes 1, 2 and 3 in the wiki page for more detail.
Minerva will become an independent skin without a dependency on MobileFrontend, and vice versa. Please see Outcome 4 in the wiki page for more detail.
Please visit the project page on MediaWiki.org to learn more about the outcomes and outputs, and share your questions. [2]
N.B. This project is distinct from “Output 3.1: Contribution tools on
mobile
web via an existing mediawiki skin” [3], described in the FY 2018-2019
plan.
Joaquin Oltra Hernandez Senior Software Engineer, Readers Web
Plan:FY18-19/2/7
Invest_in_the_MobileFrontend_%26_MinervaNeue_frontend_architecture
Annual_Plan/2018-2019/Audiences#Outcome_3:_Mobile_Contributing
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Hi all!
It has been a couple of weeks since the initial email. Thanks to all who asked and commented, please continue to do so over email, phabricator [1], or on the wiki talk page [2].
We will proceed to create phabricator #epic tasks and flesh them out in preparation for the upcoming FY, based on the documentation on-wiki.
Expect more updates to come before starting the work, and some technical blog posts about related work.
Thanks!
[1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/67/ [2]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web/Projects/Invest_in_the_Mobil...
On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 7:40 PM, Joaquin Oltra Hernandez < jhernandez@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi!
Over the next fiscal year, the Wikimedia Foundation Readers Web team will be making technical improvements to the mobile web codebases (MobileFrontend and MinervaNeue).
The project, which we’re calling ‘Invest in the MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue frontend architecture’, contained in Output 2.7 of the Platform Evolution CDP [1], is currently in its specification and planning stages. The outcomes of the project are:
- Improve developer experience (on-boarding, maintenance, development)
- Reduce technical debt and make production improvements
- Separate presentation and logic
- Make Minerva and MobileFrontend better citizens of the MediaWiki
ecosystem
MobileFrontend & MinervaNeue, which power the Wikimedia mobile sites, make heavy use of client-side UIs with templates, CSS and JavaScript. Over the past eight years of developing a mobile-first wiki experience we have learnt and frontend technology has evolved. We will improve and modernize the code bases to continue supporting our mobile web users in the future. Please see Outcomes 1, 2 and 3 in the wiki page for more detail.
Minerva will become an independent skin without a dependency on MobileFrontend, and vice versa. Please see Outcome 4 in the wiki page for more detail.
Please visit the project page on MediaWiki.org to learn more about the outcomes and outputs, and share your questions. [2]
N.B. This project is distinct from “Output 3.1: Contribution tools on mobile web via an existing mediawiki skin” [3], described in the FY 2018-2019 plan.
Joaquin Oltra Hernandez Senior Software Engineer, Readers Web
Plan:FY18-19/2/7 [2]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/ Invest_in_the_MobileFrontend_%26_MinervaNeue_frontend_architecture [3]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ Annual_Plan/2018-2019/Audiences#Outcome_3:_Mobile_Contributing