Timwi wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Timwi wrote:
Last time I checked, you had CVS access.
CVS access doesn't make me an expert on the source code. :-p
Asking an "expert" to do everything for you is not the way to either become an expert or to even get thing in question done.
Tim, I'm very sorry you think of me this way, but I just don't have the time to become an expert just now. My course ends in August; I might become an expert then. I've already installed MediaWiki and I can dive right into it. Until then, however, I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently interested in unpaid volunteer work that I would jeopardise my result.
So, a couple of thoughts I should probably keep to myself.
0) Everybody's time here is valuable. Being respectful of each other's time constraints is probably a good practice for working together successfully.
1) It worries me that programmers would avoid making changes to MediaWiki just because it's hard to figure out where to make those changes. For my own part, I have to admit that I kind of dread going into the MW source -- it sometimes feels like a jungle in there.
Whether that complexity is real or if I'm just a third-rate programmer (more probable) is an open question, as is the question of whether the complexity may just be inherent to our problem domain.
But if the complexity is real, and not absolutely necessary, the work put into a code refactoring effort (MW 2.0?) might pay off in having a more accessible codebase that more people can contribute to. It would be a _ton_ of work, though, and I wouldn't presume to impose that task on anyone (see point 0 above B-).
~ESP
- It worries me that programmers would avoid making changes to
MediaWiki just because it's hard to figure out where to make those changes. For my own part, I have to admit that I kind of dread going into the MW source -- it sometimes feels like a jungle in there.
Perhaps at the very least we need to come up with some way of documenting how the source works - like the boring bit of coursework projects where you have to write up a report to make it look like you "designed" the thing, rather than just writing it and fiddling with it till it worked (I hope at least *some* of you have had to do this kind of coursework at some stage...). Dull as they are, it wouldn't half help if there were some bits like data flow diagrams - even just a breakdown of what *classes* exist in the codebase (http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_code_layout currently reveals little more than "ls" + a bit of common sense).
And yes, I know I should do it myself rather than complaining - and seeing as I just graduated [2:1! 2:1!!], I may just have the chance to do that; document while I familiarise myself...
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