Chad wrote:
Unless we plan on trying to mass-convert not only years of old revisions but change years-old behavior that millions of users have come to expect? I would expect _any_ change to keep {{sometemplate}} always working, even if the mechanics behind it change.
Why not switch the template syntax for articles to match the syntax for tags (which in turn is based on XML or whatever syntax that comes from ultimately)?
{{sometemplate|var1=foo|var2=bar}}
becomes
<sometemplate>var1=foo; var2=bar;</sometamplate>
or:
<sometemplate var1="foo" var2="bar"/>
That means that the tag namespace and the Template namespace (where namespace is more generic than just the concept of MW namespaces) will potentially clash. This could be handled with something like:
<template name="sometemplate"> var1=foo; var2=bar; </sometamplate>
or:
<template name="sometemplate" var1="foo" var2="bar"/>
which is a tad more verbose but more explicit.
Mike