A cool software history project, "Architecture of Open Source Applications," asked MediaWiki for a short history of our software. So we're collecting your historical knowledge, stories and opinions on MediaWiki's architecture. Go to
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture_document
to find out more, and go to the orange "Add your piece." box to share your thoughts. We have a few questions for you to answer. If you have a few minutes to answer them, please do it by September 30th so Guillaume Paumier and I have time to organize all the contributions into one coherent narrative.
Thanks!
Sumana Harihareswara Volunteer Development Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation
Hi,
On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
A cool software history project, "Architecture of Open Source Applications," asked MediaWiki for a short history of our software. So we're collecting your historical knowledge, stories and opinions on MediaWiki's architecture. Go to
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture_document
to find out more, and go to the orange "Add your piece." box to share your thoughts. We have a few questions for you to answer.
I want to stress how important it is for the MediaWiki community to be actively involved in this.
When the book's editor contacted us, he has in mind a traditional setup, where one or two subject matter experts would write the whole thing.
We decided to go with a more inclusive, collaborative process, for two reasons:
* We know the Power of The Crowd; the more eyeballs, the better. The collective history of MediaWiki is recorded in wikis, mailing lists, and commits, but most importantly, in the experience, memories and opinions of its developers.
* The one or two subject matter experts who could have been able to write the whole thing were too busy actually doing stuff, to spend too much time writing a chapter on this. By using a crowd-sourced, collaborative process, we split the workload, and it allows Sumana and I to support the community more effectively.
I believe the final document will be extremely useful for new MediaWiki developers, and I hope that experienced developers will also find some use for it.
So please, take a few minutes to share your historical knowledge and opinions about MediaWiki: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture_document
You know what they say over at Wikipedia; Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something.
Please share what you know.
Thanks,
On 13 September 2011 13:41, Guillaume Paumier gpaumier@wikimedia.org wrote:
I want to stress how important it is for the MediaWiki community to be actively involved in this.
I want Magnus to tell the story of just why it's in PHP. Possibly in section 2 of that page ;-)
- d.
On 13/09/11 14:56, David Gerard wrote: <snip>
I want Magnus to tell the story of just why it's in PHP. Possibly in section 2 of that page ;-)
Because wikipedia used UseMode wiki written in Perl which IMO is worse than PHP.
Python, ruby etc were not that popular at that time and PHP was becoming the de facto web language. He could have used ASP or ColdFusion though. :-)
Historical notes: - python2 was released in 2001 IIRC. - ruby was only known in Japan and was made known to occidental with Ruby on Rails (2004-2005?).
yet, it would be great to have his own explanation :b
This isn't MediaWiki history, but...
On 9/13/11 10:32 AM, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
Historical notes:
- python2 was released in 2001 IIRC.
2000 actually. And if you were in the Python community you probably had been using 2.0-ish features via the __future__ interface.
- ruby was only known in Japan and was made known to occidental with
Ruby on Rails (2004-2005?).
The first english Ruby book, Programming Ruby (aka the Pickaxe Book), was published in 2001. But you're right that RoR greatly enhanced Ruby's popularity.
yet, it would be great to have his own explanation :b
As much as we all love to hate PHP, it was (and is) a good choice.
On 11-09-13 12:18 PM, Neil Kandalgaonkar wrote:
This isn't MediaWiki history, but...
On 9/13/11 10:32 AM, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
Historical notes:
- python2 was released in 2001 IIRC.
2000 actually. And if you were in the Python community you probably had been using 2.0-ish features via the __future__ interface.
- ruby was only known in Japan and was made known to occidental with
Ruby on Rails (2004-2005?).
The first english Ruby book, Programming Ruby (aka the Pickaxe Book), was published in 2001. But you're right that RoR greatly enhanced Ruby's popularity.
yet, it would be great to have his own explanation :b
As much as we all love to hate PHP, it was (and is) a good choice.
;) Now if we could only ditch it for a compiled-to-PHP alternative to get rid of the parts that we hate.
On 13/09/11 21:18, Neil Kandalgaonkar wrote:
yet, it would be great to have his own explanation :b
As much as we all love to hate PHP, it was (and is) a good choice.
Nowadays I will go for Javascript but still believe PHP is the best overall choice for MediaWiki :-D
On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 7:32 PM, Ashar Voultoiz hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:
On 13/09/11 14:56, David Gerard wrote:
<snip> > I want Magnus to tell the story of just why it's in PHP. Possibly in > section 2 of that page ;-)
Because wikipedia used UseMode wiki written in Perl which IMO is worse than PHP.
See also the section in an archived project page regarding the "Phase II" software:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PHP_script_FAQ#Why_are_we_using_PHP_i...
-- Krinkle
Guillaume Paumier wrote:
When the book's editor contacted us, he had in mind a traditional setup, where one or two subject matter experts would write the whole thing.
For reference: http://www.aosabook.org/en/index.html.
I believe the final document will be extremely useful for new MediaWiki developers, and I hope that experienced developers will also find some use for it.
I doubt it. I do think you ought to be re-titled to "Storyteller," though. :-)
So please, take a few minutes to share your historical knowledge and opinions about MediaWiki: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture_document
Since nobody else has, I'll throw out two links: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki#History * http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_history
There's also likely some decent content buried in the archives of wikitech-l and on Meta-Wiki. I don't really know what else you'd need when writing the history of MediaWiki that isn't already readily available (commit messages, mailing list posts, IRC chats, wikitech.wikimedia.org, mediawiki.org, etc.). Looking at some of the questions you're asking, though, this project seems to have very little to do with history in any traditional sense of the word.
You know what they say over at Wikipedia; Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something.
I don't think anyone at Wikipedia says that.
MZMcBride
On 13/09/11 02:57, Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
A cool software history project, "Architecture of Open Source Applications," asked MediaWiki for a short history of our software. So we're collecting your historical knowledge, stories and opinions on MediaWiki's architecture. Go to
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_architecture_document
to find out more, and go to the orange "Add your piece." box to share your thoughts. We have a few questions for you to answer. If you have a few minutes to answer them, please do it by September 30th so Guillaume Paumier and I have time to organize all the contributions into one coherent narrative.
Sumanah, you probably want to conduct an interview with Magnus and lcrawte for the very early history. Then Brion and Tim will be able to complement. Gabriel Wicke should be able to retrace the monobook skin history.
On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 11:05 PM, Ashar Voultoiz hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:
Sumanah, you probably want to conduct an interview with Magnus and lcrawte
You probably meant lcrocker, right? Lcawte was a bit young at the time :)
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Hi!
A cool software history project, "Architecture of Open Source Applications," asked MediaWiki for a short history of our software.
If you're soliciting feedback, you should note that putting this into an initial version of initial ideas list is somewhat odd way to attract contributions:
"Drawbacks, decisions we have rued • dependence on MySQL?"
What did you mean here? The word 'rued' sounds relatively rude to me. It is not that we have strict dependency on MySQL (did you see the code?), nor there were too many bitterly regrets (it is somewhat least problematic part of technology stack, imo ;)
Domas
On 14/09/11 11:39, Domas Mituzas wrote:
Hi!
A cool software history project, "Architecture of Open Source Applications," asked MediaWiki for a short history of our software.
If you're soliciting feedback, you should note that putting this into an initial version of initial ideas list is somewhat odd way to attract contributions:
"Drawbacks, decisions we have rued • dependence on MySQL?"
What did you mean here? The word 'rued' sounds relatively rude to me. It is not that we have strict dependency on MySQL (did you see the code?), nor there were too many bitterly regrets (it is somewhat least problematic part of technology stack, imo ;)
Obviously Sumana was referring to the fact that the MediaWiki community collectively ignored an experienced system administrator with a "Wikipedia loving heart" who posted this very compelling argument in favour of PostgreSQL:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/10844
Just think how different the world might have been ;)
-- Tim Starling
On 14/09/11 07:33, Tim Starling wrote: <snip>
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/10844
Just think how different the world might have been ;)
Well done Tim ! :-b
This is my new favorite URL, ever.
On 9/13/11 10:33 PM, Tim Starling wrote:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/10844
Just think how different the world might have been ;)
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