Steve Bennett wrote:
Here's the deal. I created this ISBN template
{{ISBN}} which does
nothing very exciting. It simply substitutes the text "ISBN {{{1}}}".
However, my reasoning for creating it seemed sound: to provide an
abstraction layer so users don't have to learn the rather arbitrary
syntax that Wikipedia uses to deal with ISBN codes. Instead, they can
use the same syntax they use everywhere: {{template name|argument}}.
Sounds sensible to me. "Magic" syntax where seemingly normal-looking
text gets transformed is evil, because it's unclear what's going on, and
prone to breakage. MediaWiki took a great leap forward by moving from
magical CamelCase links to [[marked-up links]], for example. Just about
the only necessary evil I can think of is the auto-date-formatting;
dates are too common to really be done any other way, although it too is
slightly evil and sometimes kicks in or doesn't kick in in unexpected ways.
-Mark