Parser 2011/The big picture
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MediaWiki as we know it had its basic architecture set in 2001-2002, based on the then-needs of Wikipedia migrating off of UseModWiki. This has locked in a number of assumptions which have been difficult to break out of.
What's changed?
| State of the art on the interwebs | |
|---|---|
| 2001 | 2011 |
| Mixed Latin-1, UTF-8 charsets | UTF-8 everywhere |
| Light DHTML as progressive enhancement | Pervasive AJAX: jQuery, APIs, mashups |
| View-edit-submit-review form sequences | Live AJAX controls |
| Plain textarea input | WYSIWIG word processing |
| Upload a .JPEG or .GIF from your computer | Import files in many formats, manipulate them online |
| Mailing list and IRC with links to wiki pages | Multiuser Etherpad with integrated chat |
| Admins expected to use low-level config files a lot | Apps expected to auto-tune better, provide sensible interfaces for configuration |
| Only banks and e-commerce do SSL | Mail and social networking use SSL for all logins, starting to default to SSL for everything. |
We've also seen some interesting changes within our own community which can point us at some interesting directions:
- Custom user and site JavaScript and styles and l10n messages have made a lot of customization and some local features possible that would never have gotten done by core developers. With the in-browser JavaScript+HTML+CSS environment only getting awesomer as browsers evolve, this is a key environment for feature expansion and creative content creation. Make it easier to create and share things; find ways to remove bottlenecks to sharing code between users and between sites, and making it safer to do so by devising restricted execution environments.
Values
editMajor future-oriented projects should consider the core values of a wiki environment. What are some key properties of wiki, and what are current holes in that that we can fill in by modernizing?
| Wiki is ... | Social | Integrate messaging, chat, multiuser editing, and mentor/colleague relationships into the platform. |
|---|---|---|
| Creative | We need smarter editing tools to help with complex pages and templates, and to make images and drawings editable. | |
| Interactive | Go beyond static text+photos+video to animations, maps, interactive diagrams, calculators, educational games. | |
| Extensible | Support your power users: let them experiment with and share templates, user/site JS+CSS and gadgets safely. |
See also
edit- Roadmap
- Feature map for an exhaustive product-centric taxonomy of possible MediaWiki features, examples and strategic assessment of each
- Requests for comment
- Parser 2011/Potential projects