Sorry, this is going to be a blatant rant...
Request: http://www.wikia.com/api.php?action=query&list=categorymembers&cmtit... Result: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <api> <error code="cmtitleandcategory" info="The cmcategory and cmtitle parameters can't be used together" /> </api>
How are people supposed to write tools that work with sites other than Wikipedia when things change fast and non-intrusive fallbacks for older versions are specifically blocked? Please remember that MediaWiki is not used only on Wikimedia, where SVN HEAD is just fine. It is used by thousands of other sites, many of which are older, but still can benefit from bot tools. And I can't just get the MediaWiki version before retrieving categories, because that would disqualify those who use 1.12 pre-releases. Thanks Satan this at least was removed soon after the release.
The moral: please think of long-term consequences of your changes, if you change the way a piece of code works, at least (pleeeease!) allow people to fall back without much PITA.
And can this mistake be fixed at least in service releases for 1.12?
Max Semenik wrote:
Sorry, this is going to be a blatant rant...
Request: http://www.wikia.com/api.php?action=query&list=categorymembers&cmtit... Result:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<api> <error code="cmtitleandcategory" info="The cmcategory and cmtitle parameters can't be used together" /> </api>
How are people supposed to write tools that work with sites other than Wikipedia when things change fast and non-intrusive fallbacks for older versions are specifically blocked? Please remember that MediaWiki is not used only on Wikimedia, where SVN HEAD is just fine. It is used by thousands of other sites, many of which are older, but still can benefit from bot tools. And I can't just get the MediaWiki version before retrieving categories, because that would disqualify those who use 1.12 pre-releases. Thanks Satan this at least was removed soon after the release.
The moral: please think of long-term consequences of your changes, if you change the way a piece of code works, at least (pleeeease!) allow people to fall back without much PITA.
And can this mistake be fixed at least in service releases for 1.12?
You haven't actually explained what the mistake is, if you do then people who aren't as familiar with the API may be able to help or participate in this discussion.
MinuteElectron.
Max Semenik schreef:
Sorry, this is going to be a blatant rant...
Request: http://www.wikia.com/api.php?action=query&list=categorymembers&cmtit... Result:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<api> <error code="cmtitleandcategory" info="The cmcategory and cmtitle parameters can't be used together" /> </api>
I hadn't thought about the fact that people might wanna make their code work for both pre-change and post-change APIs this way, which is kinda stupid. I'll remember to do this better in the future (in fact, 1.13 will have a change towards that goal). It should also be noted that this is kind of a transition phase: the code has only been like this for a few weeks, after that cmcategory is ignored completely.
The moral: please think of long-term consequences of your changes, if you change the way a piece of code works, at least (pleeeease!) allow people to fall back without much PITA.
action=paraminfo (which IIRC was introduced before cmtitle) does a lot of that. Also, breaking changes are announced on the mediawiki-api mailing list, which you should really be subscribed to if you're developing an application that uses the API.
And can this mistake be fixed at least in service releases for 1.12?
Why would it? Just upgrade to 1.13 if you're gonna upgrade anyway. Service releases only ever address security problems.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@home.nl wrote:
Why would it? Just upgrade to 1.13 if you're gonna upgrade anyway. Service releases only ever address security problems.
They sometimes address more than that.
Hoi, With the Betawiki ability to backport messages, a service release also includes many more localisations :) A new export of the messages from Betawiki has occurred recently, it just needs some packaging and, we have our second language pack :) Thanks, GerardM
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 12:30 AM, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.comSimetrical%2Bwikilist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Roan Kattouw roan.kattouw@home.nl wrote:
Why would it? Just upgrade to 1.13 if you're gonna upgrade anyway. Service releases only ever address security problems.
They sometimes address more than that.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Roan Kattouw schrieb:
action=paraminfo (which IIRC was introduced before cmtitle) does a lot of that. Also, breaking changes are announced on the mediawiki-api mailing list, which you should really be subscribed to if you're developing an application that uses the API.
What's the point in having to write a huge compatibility database how the API behaves on each different wiki? It's fine on Wikimedia wikis, where every wiki behaves same and you can adopt to it. But other sites use older parts of the API and with this they also change formats. And now imagine the huge overhead when you want to have a bot supporting not only Wikimedia wikis, but also Wikia stuff...or even more sites: The bigger the number, the bigger and more complex has to be your API version switch stuff.
Marco
Marco Schuster schreef:
What's the point in having to write a huge compatibility database how the API behaves on each different wiki? It's fine on Wikimedia wikis, where every wiki behaves same and you can adopt to it. But other sites use older parts of the API and with this they also change formats. And now imagine the huge overhead when you want to have a bot supporting not only Wikimedia wikis, but also Wikia stuff...or even more sites: The bigger the number, the bigger and more complex has to be your API version switch stuff.
I know breaking changes suck, and I'm always trying to avoid them, but sometimes the benefit of a breaking change outweighs the annoyance of updating client applications.
I'm not gonna discuss the cmcategory/cmtitle change or other breaking changes of the past here: what's done is done. I just want to reassure you that I don't make breaking changes on a whim, but consider them carefully and avoid them wherever possible.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org