Hi all,
If you write, maintain or are otherwise active in development, and directly or indirectly make use of MediaWiki, then you should subscribe to:
mediawiki-api-announce@lists.wikimedia.org
That is a mailing list that only brings important announcements for developers that use MediaWiki as an API.
Note that this list is not limited to API as "api.php" but about MediaWiki as a application programming interface (API) in general.
Subjects that have announcements on that list:
* Important changes in database schema (columns or tables added, removed or changed in such a way that you should change your queries. Think for example of the addition of rev_deleted, queries should most likely query for rev_deleted=0 now).
* Changes in the JavaScript API (methods being deprecated or removed in the mediawiki.js library etc. as well as upgrades of third-party libraries that ship with MediaWiki, such as jQuery).
* Major changes to the HTML layout (such as the change for the sidebar id to #mw-panel)
* Hooks in MediaWiki PHP. Mostly for extension developers. Changes or deprecation of hooks.
* And last but not least, the api.php itself. All major changes.
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Although time will learn how the list is used, to readers and writers of this list:
"All subjects should clearly indicate what needs changing and when!"
For example "Vector skin sidebar html ID changes to '#mw-panel' in 1.17".
Also, whenever Wikimedia has scheduled a deployment of revision(s) or entire branches that expose any change that was previously announced, a new mail should be sent here to remind/summarize upcoming changes (since gadgets should/can't be changed until the new version is deployed but new versions can be prepared or tested in advance)
Hope to see you soon on mediawiki-api-announce@lists.wikimedia.org :)
Please reply-to to wikitech to keep discussions about this central.
-- Krinkle