Hi all,
With excitement we're sharing today that Vue.js is Wikimedia
Foundation's official choice for adoption as future JavaScript
framework for use with MediaWiki.
The evaluation of front-end frameworks officially started mid 2019, as
part of the Platform Evolution program’s goal to evolve our technology
platform and development processes to empower the Wikimedia
Movement[0].
The corresponding Technical RFC was successfully resolved in March
2020[1]. As this framework selection is a wide-ranging, long-term
decision, a dedicated group, the Front-end Architecture Working
Group[2], was established to drive the technology comparison and the
final recommendation. Besides the resolved RFC the outcome was to
build and test developer experience in a pilot project[3].
The selected pilot was within the Desktop Improvements project[4] with
its new Vue.js-based TypeaheadSearch feature that allows for providing
additional context while searching. Since its introduction in March
2021[5] the new TypeaheadSearch component has been the default across
15 wikis of varying sizes and has received positive user feedback[6].
A final developer satisfaction survey was completed to gain further
information on the developer experience. The survey results emphasized
“a positive light on the future of working with Vue.js”. And “[t]he
engineers felt optimistic about the future and confident in
recommending it for adoption across all our teams.”
The pilot gave us confidence in the recommendation to adopt Vue.js and
we are moving into further implementation of Vue.js tooling and
product migration planning.
To support further efforts, the Wikimedia Foundation has established
the Wikimedia Design System team[7], which I'm proudly part of. Our
continued work and upcoming priorities include:
- Preparing a shared Vue.js user-interface components library
- Deciding on Vue 2 or Vue 3 including transition path
- Figuring out how the components library will be built and
distributed in and beyond MediaWiki
You can find more of the ongoing work on Phabricator[8].
For full transparency, we've carried that knowledge with us for some
time already, but were prioritizing progressing integration, annual
planning and our internal All-hands conference to finally arrive at
this announcement today.
I'd like to thank a number of folks involved in leading to this, all
Front-end Architecture Working Group members, especially colleagues
Eric Gardner & Roan Kattouw for driving the RFC, the Readers Web team
for undergoing as pilot implementers and especially our former
colleague Stephen Niedzielski who was central to making it a success,
Wikimedia Deutschland for numerous insights through their Vue.js
experience, current Design System team members responsible for further
progress, all Movement volunteers involved in both providing feedback
to the pilot and contributing to development and Product & Tech
department leadership for their strong support of this wide-reaching
change.
Best regards,
Volker
References
[0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Platform_Evolution/Recommendations#1._Develop_a_user_interface_using_modern_front-end_tooling
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T241180
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Frontend_Architecture_Working_Group
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=File:FAWG_Demo.pdf&page=26
[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements
[5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Updates#March_2021:_New_search_widget_live_on_pilot_wikis,_A/B_test_in_progress_for_logged-in_users
[6] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements#List_of_early_adopter_wikis_(test_wikis)
[7] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design_Systems_Team
[8] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T286946
---
Volker Eckl
Design Lead
Wikimedia Design System
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street
Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
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