On 17/06/07, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/16/07, Edward Z. Yang edwardzyang@thewritingpot.com wrote:
XSLT is a Turing-complete language, and support for XSL in browsers is patchy at best, so that would mean executing arbitrary code on Wikimedia servers.
Well, technically yes, in the same way that I could probably build a Turing-complete programming language on top of MediaWiki's responses to HTTP requests. That would be "executing arbitrary code" too. Templates are Turing-complete too, if you neglect the unusually low code length limit (people always neglect that computers are finite-state anyway, right?). The issue with running arbitrary code is the I/O and possibly performance, not the code execution per se. The only thing to worry about would be if this uses up too much resources.
It wasn't a really serious suggestion anyway. :) If we wanted to do something like that, it should be via a more conventional templating system, like maybe along the lines of MediaWiki:Sidebar:
- content column
** site notice ** first heading ** body content *** site subtitle *** content subtitle *** jump-to navigation *** page content ** print footer
- navigation column
** content actions *** main article *** discussion *** edit *** history *** watch *** protect *** delete ...
Most of that could be sanely reordered to your heart's content.
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I say Simetrical's idea is good - please make it :D (at least as an extension if nothing else).