What is the current state of any technical solution to the problem with
conditional templates?
I know that at east one solution has been proposed
(
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AzaToth/Logic which I personally think
is over-egging the pudding, but is a good first step) but I have heard
absolutely nothing as to whether anybody is ever going to actually do
anything about it.
In the meantime, various users (Netoholic and SnowSpinner chief amongst
them) are making vaguely threatening rumblings which imply simply destroying
any and all templates which use anything like conditional code: the dreaded
"meta-template" term is bandied about with wild abandon. Other users, in a
mad attempt to escape from the [[WP:AUM]] bludgeon, are driven to perpetrate
atrocities like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_TV_channel&o…
(warning: obscene code alert).
The only response I have heard from anybody on the development side is "we
don't want it Turing compliant", which I assume means that they don't want
sufficient bells and whistles to make it possible to write nasty little
virus thingies.
Well, neither do the users: we simply want something in Mediawiki which will
perform the same function as {{qif}}
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Qif ) and {{switch}}
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Switch ) without the strain these
templates are said to impose on the servers. Anything else (as I implied
earlier) would IMNSHO be overdoing it and unnecessary.
HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]