Board Thread:New Features/@comment-24739709-20150518230347/@comment-24473195-20150608122918

Imamadmad wrote: I will say one thing in favour of these parser function based templates: They're much easier to learn than Lua. Sure they are, because they are discrete functions addressing one problem at a time. If you design a module you have to understand quite a few things about programming. If the Franken-Templates were being used properly, I would agree. But personally, a Franken-Template would have an adverse effect on using wikia if I was younger. That whole soup of curly brackets, brackets, html tags is detrimental to pages. Especially when there aren't any conventions being followed. It is the wild west out there.

So I actually think that in most cases, wikitext based templates using parser functions are actually better than using Lua on smaller templates, which are in the majority of templates used, as it reduces the amount of hunting to find each needed part of the code, analogous to holding all methods of a short program in a single file. Just my two cents to add in defence of these "Franken-templates". That's another problem altogether made worse by Franken-templates. Many people re-invent the wheel unnecessarily because they don't know a good solution that has been tested exists. Rather than wasting time re-inventing the wheel people should be using their time innovating, finding solutions for new problems.

Wikia is/was working on making module transclusion a reality, and that could eliminate that argument altogether as global modules will be stored in a centralized repository.