On 11/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Those are fairly minor problems for a programming language. They are
quite major problems for a language intended for laypeople to write
articles in. Consider tables - at the moment, we use whitespace quite
liberally and inconsistently to make tables easier to work with. Since
the way you want it varies from page to page it would be impossible
for the "deparser" to get it how users want it.
Nothing is ever going to make editing tables in raw text a fun or
productive thing to do. Even
if we never get wikiwyg happening, a table editor would be pretty bloody
useful.
But the broader question
of how whitespace would be treated in a parser/deparser is worth considering.
I think this is what would happen:
1) User creates new page with lots of wikitext.
2) User saves page.
3) User spots a mistake and clicks "Edit this page" to fix it.
4) User sees that everything has changed from when they saved it.
5) User runs away never to be seen again.
I asked my gf tonight whether she had ever edited Wikipedia:
1) User clicks "edit"
2) User sees lots of wikitext.
3) Step 5 as above.
Steve