On 11/10/07, Merlijn van Deen valhallasw@arctus.nl wrote:
To change the format to XML (and updating the wikitext format at the same time) means we need four important things: an 'old wikitext'->XML converter, a XML->'good wikitext' converter, a 'good wikitext'->XML converter and a XML->HTML parser. (s/converter/parser, if you care about the exact words). The 'good wikitext' and html parsers should be fairly easy; the first is just plain hard.
No, the first isn't hard, for a simple reason: you just edit the current parser a bit. Instead of outputting HTML, it outputs the XML format of your choice. In other words, you change the handful of bits that actually create the output string, while leaving all the twisty logic untouched. Of course this would take some hours to do, but it's not that it would be a hard problem, it would just take a bit of work.
The hard part, IMO, is probably creating a wikitext format that can roundtrip with XML. Has anyone tried this kind of thing? Has it worked? Or really, to start with, has anyone created parseable wikitext period?
(Although as far as I can see wikicreole isn't available as context free grammar either..)
There was some discussion about this when Wikicreole inclusion was discussed. Apparently the parseability was completely ignored when formulating the syntax (as with MW syntax), so it's probably easier to parse than MediaWiki mainly by virtue of having fewer features.
On 11/10/07, Soo Reams soo@sooreams.com wrote:
- I would volunteer but I probably lack both skill and time.
I must say, perhaps a bit cynically, that this is the best summary of the discussion that anyone's given so far. There's nothing wrong with talk, but it's not going to amount to much if nobody much is being talked *to*.