This last week has been productive. We’ve seen some steady progress on the PHP backend, and massive strides in our move towards a new frontend. In the last week we’ve pushed 298 commits across 380 files, for a total of 5,802 additions and 5,849 deletions in 29 different merged pull requests.
On the PHP end, things have been incremental but not groundshaking. In addition to some refactoring and legacy code pruning, the diff functionality was updated to be more readable. Compare:
Instead of Wikidot’s unusual word-based difference view, the original lines added/removed are shown. Additionally, it uses the context information to only display parts of the page that actually changed, separated by horizontal rules. This way, small changes on large pages do not require lots of scrolling to find.
These weren’t massive changes to the code, and doubtless the diff view will be remade in the future, but it’s always fun to see what quality of life improvements can be made from even very modest code changes.
Speaking of frontend-related changes, Monkatraz has been working on getting Wikijump closer to using a new frontend. The first API routes, templates, views, and base styling were added, as well as an API mock fallback until all the parts are in place. We’re rapidly approaching a point where working on our version zero API will be the main effort, which is very exciting.
Meanwhile, Yossi has been working on a new tagging system, not only for improved developer ergonomics, but a larger tag engine to help enforce complicated tagging relationships automatically.
Overall, it’s been a good period, and hopefully further exciting developments are to come. See you next week.
