Just my thoughts: in case of a new wiki language: make use of ODF and integrate OpenOffice with MW.
I see somekind of agreement in the reactions, thats a start. :-)
Andre
Brian schreef:
I thought it was generally agreed upon that the path to fix the parser goes something like this:
- Define a new wiki language that is compatible with bison/flex
- Write a converter between the old language and the new (when possible)
- Implement per-revision parsers
- Implement the new parser
- Begin the migration
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Trevor Parscal tparscal@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On 5/11/09 11:54 AM, Marco Schuster wrote:
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Daniel Schwenlists@schwen.de wrote:
The simple (albeit ugly) solution would to add a parser version field to the revision table, drag the old parser along as 'legacy', make the new
parser
the default (and only) option for all new edits, and spit out a warning when you are editing a legacy revision for the first time. The warning you be made dependent on the cases that break with the new parser. Cases that break could be detected by comparing tidied HTML output from both parser versions.
Sounds cool, but it'd require a formalization of MW markup first
(something
that should have been done long ago). What about correcting stuff from "old" behavior to new parser via bots/update scripts, even for old revisions?
Marco
During the Berlin conference, a very popular and passionate topic of conversation was the need for better testing of MediaWiki. However, if we can't define what it's supposed to do, how can we test it. Last I heard the parser has yet to pass all of the unit-tests written for it, which aren't even very robust. so the concept of the parser's behavior being it's own documentation is clearly conflicting with good software development practices. This said, any changes to the parser cause a risk of breaking old, or even current revisions of articles, which is I've noticed to generally be seen as unacceptable. So - this topic is probably a justifiably touchy one for those involved in working on this software since there's no really elegant solution and lots of complaints.
Seems like there's been some general talk about this idea...
- Link a revision to a version of the parser
- Allow multiple parser versions to co-exist
- Provide an upgrade path for revisions to be brought into compatibility
with a more modern parser
Nothing about this sounds easy, but if we ever want to improve MW markup or parser behavior we will need to do something. Is there any support / criticism for this direction? I'm very curious what other potential directions could be taken which could also result in:
- The parser's behavior being a reflection of a well-documented standard
- Ability to make changes to MW markup standards over time without
abandoning old revisions
- Trevor
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