On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@gmail.comwrote:
2009/9/25 Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu:
I am not here saying that it is a bad feature, not a bit. In fact I have previously advocated on this list for the ability for users to specify form-like interfaces. What I am saying is that I think it's premature.
There
is a tradeoff that needs to be balanced here. It's easy to add new
features
and hard to fix the old one. As we add new features however we diverse farther and farther from the possibility of fixing wikitext. This is especially when efforts to add new features are done entirely out of the context of a clear strategy for eventually fixing wikitext.
So before a feature such as this is implemented, or any new substantial language is added to MediaWiki (such as ParserFunctions, or this
interface
specification language), I would like to see work done on the Strategy
wiki.
I don't think new work such as this should be done outside of the context
of
a very clear vision of how we will eventually fix the whole problem. And
I'm
entirely willing to help.
You seem to be missing my point (or at least are not refuting it): if implemented properly, with the minimal assumptions I mentioned, subsequent reworking of wikitext *wouldn't* *matter*, because the template call editor could easily be ported to the 'new language' or whatever we end up with. It wouldn't put us any further away from fixing wikitext; the trade-off you mentioned does not exist IMO.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
I think calling it a 'template call editor' does not do the proposed new feature justice. It would fundamentally change MediaWiki. Once this language is created it will, if I understand it correctly (please correct me if I don't), immediately support the creation of interfaces that automatically create new interfaces, and so on and so forth. It is a fundamental departure from the way we currently do things on the wiki.
However powerful it is, I'm not sure we can really rule out future incompatibility as you suggest by simply stating that we can easily forwardport. This feature is intended to hack a fix on top of the usability issues inherent in templates. Every time we have a discussion about the pitfalls of wikitext the center of this discussion is templates. Even without parser functions they are turing complete - with them it is a complete usability disaster. So it seems that when we finally get around to developing a consensus about the changes we want in wikitext, there will be widespread agreement that we need to change templates. But so far, without any clear strategy on that front, we have no idea what those changes will be.