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#55 Better performance
I think the current WikiBlame is the beginning of a great tool. It can be very useful for figuring out an article's history and verifying its content - and can thus address what is perhaps wikipedia's greatest weakness. However, it's currently quite slow, and the interface isn't that great :(
I think significant improvements can be made if the tool was re-written to run in javascript and use the Mediawiki API to get the diffs:
- AFAIK from looking at the source, a direct JSON request will eliminate latency going to/from the WikiBlame server.
- The API lets one download multiple page versions in a single request..
- By doing diffs in the browser, they can appear pretty much instantly, and let someone rapidly zoom through an article's history. Currently this is so slow to do that it's pretty much undoable, which is a real shame.
- No need to pay for a WikiBlame server
- More advanced search features, like showing all diffs that modify a paragraph can use the client's CPU cycles.
- Can be integrated better into the wikipedia interface (possibly as a gadget).
This is well and truly for a WikiBlame 2.0.. but it would sure be great to have it :)
I originally designed it to be server based, in order to use it even with low bandwith access, but your suggestion sounds interesting.
I've been thinking about using the API or the toolserver to save some traffic, but I didn't have the time (maybe not the skills as well) to do it.
If anyone is interested in doing it: be bold!
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There's http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/blame/ , although a bit buggy currently.