On 7/26/06, Nick Jenkins nickpj@gmail.com wrote:
But I do think WikiWSY is impressive. Getting something client-side that matches the server-side Parser for core functionality is very hard. Getting something that's "quirk-compatible" for the less common stuff is very very hard (and would probably require literally porting Parser.php from PHP to JavaScript; and then keeping it updated as Parser.php changed - lots & lots & lots of work; it could even be easier to write a custom PHP-to-JavaScript "compiler" to do it automatically).
Google Web Toolkit has a Java->JavaScript compiler in it. Too bad MediaWiki isn't Java-based! But (if I was doing it) I'd rather write a clone in something like Java that could be easily understood & reported than in a language like JavaScript that's maybe not so intuitive to outsiders.
I wonder how difficult it would be to reduce the parser to a ruleset that could be "executed" on a more minimal VM/core. Sounds like a good topic for a PhD to be honest. :P