[maemo-community] Cannot import docs directly into wiki.maemo.org

[From: Jarmo.Tikka at nokia.com]

Hi,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Neary [mailto:nearyd at gmail.com] On Behalf Of ext Dave Neary
> Sent: 11 May, 2010 12:32
> To: Tikka Jarmo (Nokia-D/Helsinki)
> Cc: maemo-community at maemo.org
> Subject: Re: Cannot import docs directly into wiki.maemo.org
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Jarmo.Tikka at nokia.com wrote:
> >> I explained that the steps were:
> <snip>
> >> His response was, "that's not something you should be doing on a
> >> production server" (which is, pretty much, what I said a couple of
> >> weeks ago).
> >
> > Why is this something you shouldnto do? And how this is different
> > from what you have been doing with all our documents in wiki (like
> > developer guide and those tutorials you already imported)?
> 
> I will try to explain again - hopefully Niels will be able to explain
> better than me.
> 
> Rule number one of production servers: Install no software which is not
> absolutely necessary.

You need to install Maemo doc toolchain to be able to develop, generate or publish our docs. So I consider this a must :).

> 
> Rule number two of production servers: Test every change you make
> before deploying.

As I said couple of times before you are free to import docs first to some other MediaWiki to test import. But after that import directly to the maemo.org MediaWiki as I have been requesting. Otherwise you need to develop and test your own toolchain to export/import those docs...

> 
> Rule number three of production servers: Don't ever, ever bypass
> applications when writing data to an application data store.

As I have said couple of times our import tool uses standard tools and frameworks for the MediaWiki import. Nothing gets bypassed here. Probably that export-import you have been doing uses exactly same tools.

> 
> Your proposal breaks all three rules - installing the toolchain (plus
> its dependencies) brings a number of project-specific packages onto the
> server, plus their dependencies. Importing directly onto the server
> could have unforeseen consequences, and we won't have tested them. And
> your tools write directly into the mediawiki database, rather than
> using the dump/load tools shipped with the mediawiki server.

There are only few packages that need to be installed if you have installed MediaWiki from Debian packages as you should. You probably have instelld MediaWiki from tar bal and because of that our tools want to install MediaWIki (because they depend on those standard MediaWIki import tools).

I have already informed that we can remove that dependency to the MediaWIki Debian packages from our import tool installation but then everybody needs to manually make sure standard MediaWIki installation has been done.

> 
> I hope it is clear now why I felt uncomfortable about this a few weeks
> ago, and why Niels also feels uncomfortable with this.

Unfortunately this is not any clearer. At the end you just do not want to install those tools to the server and I do not understand why.

> 
> When I did a previous import (which, you will recall, did not happen
> correctly), I ran the maemodoc-tools import in a local mediawiki
> instance, and then exported those pages from that instance using
> mediawiki's provided tools, before re-importing them via the MediaWiki
> import interface.
> 
> Daniel did all of the imports previous to this, and he tells me that he
> also went through this intermediate step every time.

For all our documents our MediaWiki import tool has always been used (also by Daniel). What has happened after that (some extra exports and imports) I do not know. The bottom line is that you MUST use our too to import our docs to MediaWiki. There simply is not another choice for you unless you want to rewrite docs to wiki manually...

> 
> > You can import our documents into which MediaWiki service you like
> > but you have to use our toolchain. If you are able to properly
> > export-import same docs from this middle wiki to Maemo.org wiki that
> > is fine for me also but I just do not understand why you want to do
> > it in so complicated way.
> 
> My question is how to do this "proper" export. Do you know how to
> handle the image files and other issues you mentioned previously?

Sorry but there is no "proper" export as we do not support any export from MediaWiki. What we have implemented is import.

And I do not know how you should handle those images that do not get exported by default. maybe MediaWiki admin guide is something to read?

Cheers,
//Jarmo

> 
> Cheers,
> Dave.
> 
> --
> maemo.org docsmaster
> Email: dneary at maemo.org
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