------------ Původní zpráva ------------ Od: Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com Předmět: Re: [Wikitech-l] Anchors haven't id attribute Datum: 28.12.2008 01:07:08
On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
[snip]
Maybe we should just fix the normalization function the way we'd already planned to, so that it'll work right the way we'd already planned to?
Done in r45109. I notice, by the way, that HTML5 allows any string not containing whitespace for id's . . . yet another case where it clearly wins the "don't gratuitously cause pain to developers" contest.
*sigh*
Why do we have to hunt for some other solution when we have fully working, fully valid and fully intuitive one?
OK, let's make some summary about three versions we have:
Terms used: - old version - the for-many-years used version until r44896 - mid version - r44896 way - new version - r45109 way
Old version was used for many years. It was fully valid - ids were only there where they could have been copied from name AND comply to the regexp mentioned in previous posts. It has been done automatically by Tidy. And it was fully intuitive - you just wrote [[#Foo]] and it linked to section named Foo. Or you've added #Foo in URL in address bar and you got to the proper section as well. And it was fully working properly.
The mid version brought the "feature" that all name attributes have been duplicated to ids. That caused massive invalidity of pages, especially non-latin and non-ASCII. However, the intuitivity of anchors creation has still been kept.
The new version prepends x to all anchors to solve the problem which was spread here in mid version - the massive invalidity of pages. So it solved one problem (which actually didn't have to be solved if we kept the old version) but brought at least two major other: First major problem is, that this change is breaking millions of existing links to sections. Links used on pages on wikis, links used on external sites, links in people's bookmarks, in emails, forum threads etc. Well, OK, let's discount all external stuff, since we don't have any influence on it, but we still have millions of links left on our own wikis which won't work anymore since r45109. The other major problem is, that since this point further the anchor links are no longer intuitive - we are now pushing people to constantly think about prepending x when creating anchor links. No more simple copy pasting of the headline. As a side effect we are now adding unnecessary work to people from non-latin wikis by pushing them to always switch to latin keyboard, or to click on edittools or whatever just to get the one "x" character in editbox to create the anchor link.
So let me summarize in points: * First we did not have any problem at all. * Second we had one problem. * Third we "solved" the problem but created at least two new. I am pretty scared what's coming next... :-/
One question for the end: What is the benefit of either mid or new version over the old one - what new functionality or feature it brings or which existing bug it fixes?
Kind regards
Danny B.