New Lua templates bring faster, more flexible pages to your wiki

MediaWiki developers introduced templates and parser functions years ago to allow end-users of MediaWiki to replicate content easily and build tools using basic logic. Along the way, we found that we were turning wikitext into a limited programming language. Complex templates have caused performance issues and bottlenecks, and its difficult for users to write and understand templates. Therefore, the Lua scripting project aims to make it possible for MediaWiki end-users to use a proper scripting language that will be more powerful and efficient than ad-hoc, parser functions-based logic. The example of Luas use in World of Warcraft is promising; even novices with no programming experience have been able to make large changes to their graphical experiences by quickly learning some Lua.