On 6/16/07, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang(a)thewritingpot.com> wrote:
XSLT is a Turing-complete language, and support for
XSL in browsers is
patchy at best, so that would mean executing arbitrary code on Wikimedia
servers.
Well, technically yes, in the same way that I could probably build a
Turing-complete programming language on top of MediaWiki's responses
to HTTP requests. That would be "executing arbitrary code" too.
Templates are Turing-complete too, if you neglect the unusually low
code length limit (people always neglect that computers are
finite-state anyway, right?). The issue with running arbitrary code
is the I/O and possibly performance, not the code execution per se.
The only thing to worry about would be if this uses up too much
resources.
It wasn't a really serious suggestion anyway. :) If we wanted to do
something like that, it should be via a more conventional templating
system, like maybe along the lines of MediaWiki:Sidebar:
* content column
** site notice
** first heading
** body content
*** site subtitle
*** content subtitle
*** jump-to navigation
*** page content
** print footer
* navigation column
** content actions
*** main article
*** discussion
*** edit
*** history
*** watch
*** protect
*** delete
...
Most of that could be sanely reordered to your heart's content.