[Wikipedia-l] PHP Wikipedia

[Mark Christensen]

I can't speak to the general availability of PHP skills on the net, except
to say I've seen statistics that show that PHP the single most common Mod
for Apache with an  850,000 server installed base -- which is about over
three times mod pearl's 250,000.  Those statistics come form
www.secutityspace.com.  The exact web site is:

http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/man.200107/apachemods.html

I have some basic skills with PHP and MySQL, and some experience with
PosgreSQL.  I'm no uberhacker, but I can throw together PHP code a lot
faster than pearl CGI, so I think PHP is a reasonable way to go.  

I'll look into it, but I seem to remember seeing another PHP based WikiWiki
project out there, so we may have an existing code base to work with.
(Though it looks like Magnus may have done this for us as well...)

I think MySQL will be fine for a project like this, no matter whether we
choose PHP or Mod Pearl, but we should take a look at what we are likely to
need in the future before making a commitment to a particular database
backend. 


-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com]
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 5:30 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] PHP Wikipedia


How difficult do you think it will be to import all the existing wikipedia
data
into your version?

What's your take on the general availability of PHP skills on the net,
versus
Perl skills?

I've been talking to Clifford Adams about the future of Wikipedia and
UseModWiki,
and he's given his blessing to a Wikipedia-centric fork of his code.  Some
of the
design goals for UseModWiki, namely that it be easy to install, etc., aren't
necessarily
consistent with some of the more highly specialized needs of Wikipedia.  He
suggests
that we find someone (Magnus? :-)) to take over the forked version, and that
we could
set up a modern CVS, etc.

I'm reluctant to go the PHP route, partially because I don't personally know
much
about PHP, but if you can convince me that it's sufficiently superior to a
mod_perl
or perl fastcgi solution, I'm thinking that we could go your route.  Your
code could
be wikipedia-centric, and we could all learn to help you with it.

--Jimbo


Magnus Manske wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> as a few of you might know, I just wrote a complete (well, almost)
Wikipedia
> software as a PHP script!
> 
> It has all essential wiki features like article editing, version
management,
> user management, subpages, etc.
> Additionally, its data storage is completely MySQL (fast!), it has a file
> upload tool, some other goodies soon.
> Maybe best of all, script and database are prepared to support some kind
of
> editor/superuser functionality for "locking" pages, as it is currently
> discussed.
> 
> Now to the bad sides (yes, there are some...)
> - I don't have a server to host it yet. Maybe I can run it on the Nupedia
> server sometimes. So, no trying yet, sorry.
> - The parser (to convert the source text into readable stuff) is very
basic.
> I copied the HomePage and the SandBox from wikipedia, and they look about
> the same, but this is wherte the bugs will be.
> - Currently, I don't have a means to convert wikipedia to MySQL
> automatically, which is what would have to be done if (IF!) this script
ever
> gets used.
> 
> Just letting you know there's an early but working alternative ready...
> 
> Magnus
> 
> [Wikipedia-l]
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