Phil Boswell wrote:
I know that at east one solution has been proposed
(
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AzaToth/Logic which I personally think
is over-egging the pudding, but is a good first step) but I have heard
absolutely nothing as to whether anybody is ever going to actually do
anything about it.
What the **** is that? We don't need geek-features but a simple solution.
In the meantime, various users (Netoholic and
SnowSpinner chief amongst
them) are making vaguely threatening rumblings which imply simply destroying
any and all templates which use anything like conditional code: the dreaded
"meta-template" term is bandied about with wild abandon. Other users, in a
mad attempt to escape from the [[WP:AUM]] bludgeon, are driven to perpetrate
atrocities like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_TV_channel&o…
(warning: obscene code alert).
You can never prevent authors to write bad code. I'm currently
introducing conditional templates in the German Wikipedia for some small
and simple templates with up two 3 parameters [1]. Everything else is
too complex for authors anyway.
The only response I have heard from anybody on the
development side is "we
don't want it Turing compliant", which I assume means that they don't want
sufficient bells and whistles to make it possible to write nasty little
virus thingies.
Well, neither do the users: we simply want something in Mediawiki which will
perform the same function as {{qif}}
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Qif ) and {{switch}}
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Switch ) without the strain these
templates are said to impose on the servers. Anything else (as I implied
earlier) would IMNSHO be overdoing it and unnecessary.
I fully agree. We only need conditional branching with if-then-else,
switch and boolean operators. No additional string operations, no counting,
no math, no goto...
Greetings,
Jakob
[1] See
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlage_Diskussion:Zitat
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Zitate#Layout
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vorlage:Zitat&action=edit