William Allen Simpson asked:
Sorry, my query wasn't sufficiently explicit.
What are the technical reasons for the syntax "{{fullurl:"?
What are the technical reasons for the syntax "{{#if:"?
There are no technical but historical reasons.
My underlying question: are these planned differences or arbitrary?
Wikisyntax is not planned. It evolves and mutates. Some people say that there is a cabala to make the languages consist of brackets and pipes only in the end. I don't think so because I don't think that there will be an end (maybe praying to RFC, W3C, ISO or the God of Wiki helps?).
And this may be related to my lack of understanding of the difference between "magic words" and "parser extensions"....
Could somebody please explain?
In a perfect world you first design a language, test it and specify it so you can create a parser and applications that understand the language. We don't live in this world.
Greetings, Jakob
P.S: How about an obscure Wikisyntax writing contest at Wikimania?
P.P.S: If you interested in a wiki markup standard then you should join this list: http://www.wikisym.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wiki-standards