[Mediawiki-l] maintenance directory maintenance

[jidanni at jidanni.org]

TD> Well, there's /maintenance/..., but I don't know if anyone's been
TD> keeping it up-to-date with changes to the rest of the code (some
TD> of the maintenance scripts are quite out-of-date, I believe). You
TD> could back everything up and try it and see what happens.

But things might look cool but a month later you find out you have now
embedded some wrinkle into your database, who knows. That's the
problem with the maintenance directory. Programs are left lying there
like old cigarette butts in an ashtray. Actually more like old
medicine in an open cabinet where we kids are near.
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12384
I mean it's not like we found the code on some 3rd party sidewalk.
It it right there in the official distribution. Often they bear hints
inside them that they are just what we want to do some job. The
authors must have some inner urge to share them with us, otherwise
they wouldn't be in the maintenance directory in the standard
distribution. The must be eager for bug reports about what happens
when we run them, which me might, upon guessing what the program will
due despite lack of documentation, comments, etc.