Talk:Architecture guidelines

Removal notes

 * Removed the two sections about encouraging the use of commercial IDEs. To the extent that it is relevant to an architecture discussion, I think I am happy to veto it.
 * Removed the section on naming, since it is dealt with in the style guide, and also the duplicate comment about MWCryptRand naming.
 * Removed near-empty redundant section "Role of the architects in the code review process"

-- Tim Starling (talk) 08:08, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I removed the sections "Templates for common requirements" & "Declaring unit tests in an extension", after thinking over and agreeing with Daniel's claim that they'd be more appropriate for a cookbook. --Ori.livneh (talk) 01:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

What is MediaWiki?
Before embarking on architecture guidelines and considering a dramatic change to the RFC process, I think it would be helpful to define what MediaWiki is. Has that be done anywhere? If so, where? If not, wouldn't that be a sensible starting point? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I didn't realise that was subject to debate. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * A statement of purpose or list of principles or a set of pillars would be good, I think. (I started some notes at principles, but I'm not sure I feel comfortable writing something of this nature.)
 * "MediaWiki is open source wiki software." This seems like a good principle, though... should it be open source? Is MediaWiki a CMS? "MediaWiki is written in PHP." Is this a principle? I think defining (or attempting to define) what MediaWiki is will help in shaping architecture guidelines, at a high level. For example, in the context of considering MediaWiki 2.0, what is negotiable and what is non-negotiable? --MZMcBride (talk) 06:00, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you want a definition of what MediaWiki will be, rather than what MediaWiki is. You're looking for properties of MediaWiki that will be conserved through change, which is really more about limiting future changes than describing the current situation. I think we're already doing that here, in terms of architecture. In terms of choice of features, that's not a subject for this document. -- Tim Starling (talk) 00:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I was curious if there was any other document describing (what you call) how MediaWiki will be. I call it how MediaWiki is and what we strive for it to be (principles). I agree that it's outside the scope of this document, but it still seems to be missing and I think it's important to have.
 * It isn't about limiting future changes as much as it's about figuring out what the priorities of the software are. And yes, I think this will impact (not limit, but impact) guidelines like these; that's why I think it's important that defining what MediaWiki is and will be should be done first, if it hasn't been done already. (I searched around this wiki, but didn't find anything. There's likely something on Meta-Wiki, maybe.) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Where are we going?
One thing I'd like to see come out of this would be a 10000-foot overview document to just show what we'd want the class structure in core to look like. E.g. "We have Title, and X, Y, and Z service classes. And User and X, Y, and Z service classes. And then we have MovePageControllerThing, etc.". Anomie (talk) 17:23, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion! Perhaps I'll set up a "pipe dream" page and collect some ideas of how mediawiki could work if we could re-design it from scratch now. Not as a proposal for a rewrite or even refactoring, just as food for thought. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 13:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)