On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:15 AM, BrianBrian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
So far my favorite idea is to use a restricted subset of PHP.
I would like to broach an important topic however: How can we convert all of the existing ParserFunctions and difficult-to-read template code to this new language automatically? Are we really talking about the dream of getting rid of templates entirely? The end of {{||||||}} ?
How difficult would it be to modify the parser to spit out some of its data structures in the new language as opposed to HTML etc.. ?
This seems to be the more difficult part of the project.
There is a more practical/pragmatic approach which is to deprecate the current syntax similar to the way languages sometimes deprecate language features. I fear that the conversion is a superhuman task, however.
You couldn't ever turn template syntax off without making old revisions unrenderable. The best one could likely do is encourage people to upgrade and provide tools to make that easier. However, given the nastiness of template syntax, I would expect no end of wiki authors willing to help convert the commonly used stuff.
-Robert Rohde