Steve Bennett wrote:
On 14/04/06, Tels nospam-abuse@bloodgate.com wrote:
There really is nothing you can do it people absolutely, positively want to re-invent the wheel aka: a new programming language in completely new environment. I have said my reasons against it, and that's it.
I don't know if it counts as "re-inventing the wheel" when the old wheel is not available. There is no workable alternative to these parser functions, correct? And the only partial alternatives were more Flindstone vehicles than proper wheels...
As I always say, there's a difference between inventing the wheel and making a wheel. There was no expression parsing module available written in pure PHP. There were clear advantages to having one, so I wrote it, and it only took a few hours of work. I based my work on an algorithm invented in 1960 by Edsger Dijkstra.
The same applies for other MediaWiki syntax features. Old ideas in a new form.
-- Tim Starling