Wikipedia Chooses Lua As Its New Template Language 145
bonch writes "In an attempt to tackle the inefficient complexity of its current template system, Wikipedia will be adopting the Lua scripting language. Known most for its use in videogame scripting, particularly World of Warcraft, Lua is lightweight and designed for easy integration into existing applications. The transition is expected to begin after the release of MediaWiki 1.19, possibly in May."
Basically, the template system started turning into an ugly programming language. There was debate over using Javascript or Lua; Lua ultimately won due to implementation concerns. The mailing list threads announcing the decision and discussing the change have further details.
Re:Lua (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh great (Score:0, Insightful)
Maybe they should take a step back and wonder why templates became so popular in the first place? Now every page looks the same, and sports fifty irrelevant warning messages that "this page is part of blah blah blah" and god help you if you decide not to use the template, or change something you don't like about it, because you will bring down the wrath of the anal-retentive neckbeards that run the place harder than the fist of an angry god.
Not a language problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia could stick to PHP or switch to any other language. But that's not their problem. Their problem is the messy markup language they slowly created. I know cause once I tried to render their markup inside another app. Basically, they have all sorts of tags that reference obscure server-side behaviour and everything is so entangled that creating a new renderer is basically impossible. This is sad because they are wasting the work of volunteers.
As opposed to a Wordpress style engine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, Wikipedia's #1 fault and the reason I ceased actively contributing is that it requires humans to use a mark-up language for what is essentially a simple text based document.
And all such edits would be handled much easier via a WYSWIG editor. Yes, elitist monkeys with far too much time on their hands love that feel of doing something complicated for the sake of it.
Those more intelligent and or beings who have furthered the race through reproduction tend not to want to waste time.
Implement a simple editor that facilitates editing. And let computers do what they do best, process. And humans do what they do best collate ideas and knowledge.
First rule of computers. Don't waste time doing what a computer can do better than you.
Re:Stop delaying the inevitable. (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble with domain-specific languages is that they are Turing complete. This is a fatal trap: your hammer may be a great hammer, but if it's Turing-complete you will (this is a law of the universe) one day be forced to use it as a screwdriver, spanner, soda siphon, and nail. You will end up having to build a working full-scale replica of the Titanic from toothpicks and spit, complete with iceberg.
Your rule is more like - any domain-specific language will eventually evolve into brainfuck [wikipedia.org]. ParserFunctions certainly did.
Re:Raw- or OOP-base Lua? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, when you get down to actually typing in itwell, it's not as verbose as Java, but there's some real RSI danger there. With it's simple core come decisions like "not only will we not give you foo++, we won't even give you foo+=1". Try typing things like "frameCounter = frameCounter + 1" many times and you'll start to scream.
Which, for me, immediately raises the question "Are there any good Lua IDEs?". I mainly code in Java, and it's true that it can often read like the Book of Deuteronomy -- but fortunately I don't have to type all that shit out, because NetBeans autocompletes a lot of it for me. Is there anything similar for Lua?