On Tue, November 13, 2007 2:49 am, Lars Aronsson wrote:
After a long and complicated analysis, Virgil Ierubino
concluded:
What this means is that we can't use a basic
EBNF parser in all
the usual useful ways. We need new solutions.
And the answer is: No, we don't need any of this. Because the
current solution works fine.
This whole discussion is without point. There is no need for
change, is there? If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Well, actually...
ever tried nesting tables?
ever tried putting a table inside a template argument?
those two are the most important issues as far as I am concerned. For
another example, check the CommonsDelinker talk page. Finding images is
not an easy task for a bot...
And let's not start about the magic words syntax in image placement...
All in all, I cannot agree with some of you that the current syntax is OK.
However, it's impossible to switch to a better grammar unless we can
convert the current syntax. I have given my views on how to do this (a
parser that outputs an XML tree or any other system that stores what you
meant instead of the wikitext), but apparently it's not feasible.
I'll see if I have some time in the next week to check out the parser
completely. If it is possible to hack template substitution etc to output
an XML description... then I'm already pretty happy because my python XML
parser project just became obsolete :D
--valhallasw