[Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a programming language, but...

[David Gerard]

On 19/01/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:

> #loop is a problem. If this template language is Turing-complete, it can
> be used to run infinitely long programs. That is a huge avenue for abuse.
> Then again, there could be an execution limit to the parsing of a template.


We have one real-life example of this, of course, in the recent
template on es: Wikipedia that took 20 seconds to run and caused some
annoyance on wikitech-l ... how feasible are execution time limits in
practice, what's a reasonable limit (knowing people are going to push
as close to it as they can) and what's a reasonable failure mode
(knowing people are going to push as close to it as they can)?


- d.