* David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> [Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:59:04 +0100]: > 2009/9/25 Roan Kattouw <roan.katt...@gmail.com>: > > In past discussions I have noted that "tag soup" is a *feature* of > human languages, not a bug. > > HTML was constructed as a computer markup language for humans. > Unfortunately, the humans in question were nuclear physicists; lesser > beings couldn't handle it. > > Note how HTML5 now defines how to handle "bad" syntax, in recognition > of the fact that humans write tag soup. > > Wikitext spitting errors would be a bug in wikitext, not a feature. > XML is used to store "human-produced" rich formatted text by many standalone and web apps. XML parsers are also very strict and spitting errors. As it's been mentioned recently, XML is really good for bots, too, for that reason (the input is "error-free" tree). I wonder, If the browsers can handle tag soup, most probably MediaWiki parser can handle wikitext soup, too? Eg, instead of parsing error, properly close the nodes. The existing wikitext of millions of articles has to be converted by commandline upgrade script in case the wikitext will be abandoned. Though I wonder whether it's possible to keep wikitext editing mode for backwards compatibility by using the same method online. Dmitriy
_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
