-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Hi
*blows dust off list*
*cough*
90% documentation of wikitext is not hard. The last
10% has killed
every attempt.
[percentages not exact]
So. I suspect what will happen to get WYSIWYG editing is that
FCKeditor or similar will get a fair way into that 10%, then whatever
remains will be deprecated and bot-converted away from.
The biggest problem with that idea is that you can't draw a clear line
between those 90% and 10%. All wikitext is valid by defintion. How do
you know if you parsed something correctly or not?
It isn't a single construct that's problematic. It's corner cases with
very common constructs. You can't deprecate {{...}} and {{{...}}} syntax
(which at least in my experience are the most problematic).
Also these cases can't be bot-converted away for the same reason
third-party parsers and WYSIWYG editors can't candle them.
Then we translate FCKeditor into EBNF/ANTLR/WTFBOL and
the world is a
utopia of third-party parsers galore and everything is rainbows and
unicorns!
I don't know about FCKeditor, but I did bring Wikiprep parser very close
to full compatibility with MediaWiki and I can say that it would be no
easier translate to a formal grammar than the original.
The question that springs to my mind is: What is that
last 10%? Has
anyone documented the pitfalls that killed the intrepid explorers of
the past?
Check the archives of this list. It appears that every 6 months someone
will appear and try to find a solution (I learned my lesson a year ago
and I've been pessimistic about this problem ever since).
Regards
Tomaž
- --
Tomaž Šolc, Research & Development
Zemanta Ltd, London, Ljubljana
www.zemanta.com
mail: tomaz(a)zemanta.com
blog:
http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla -
http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iEYEARECAAYFAkq8zLMACgkQyJ/LzBrnoEi4jQCg8donjTb6ZqKG4Q110nrARxhR
S90An2n3rmzzNFFwm/Ypfi18tIv+e1Vl
=3NRf
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----