[Foundation-l] Why is the software out of reach of the community?

[David Gerard]

2009/1/13 Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>:

> The template equivalent to refactoring is the introduction of
> meta-templates, such as {{infobox}}.


The other useful thing that can be done with templates is to
standardise the field names in them as much as possible per wiki.

The reason? To enhance machine readability of data in them. People are
SERIOUSLY INTERESTED in this.

The user interface for templates is not entirely horrible -
{{templatename|field1=value|field2=value}} etc. As long as that stays
reasonably assumable, the plumbing behind it can be as esoteric as is
needed - no-one really cares as long as it works reliably.


- d.