It would be good to have this out of beta by the end of Q4. See 2017 wikitext editor.
Topic on Talk:Wikimedia Engineering/2016-17 Q4 Goals
Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I think it's a little premature to be pushing it to be out of beta so soon.
Right now we're still fixing bugs and considering various feature and design change requests (for example, people want a quicker way to see "show preview", and the current wikitext editor provides in-editor help on how to use wikitext which we should replicate or improve).
I imagine in this coming quarter we'll release a second version of the beta for wider adoption, and get it finished for mobile Web users, at which point we could start identifying what further testing we would need before getting it out of beta.
OK, a Beta 2 would certainly be progress. Do you think that moving it into production on desktop would be realistic by EOQ of Q1 2017-2018?
Probably not. I also think that deadlines like that are unhelpful; they create a rush for action over a push for quality. In general I'm more keen for us to make people happy than to hit some arbitrary point in time, which is why our commitments are of that flavour.
I think that a goal (rather than a deadline) is still helpful. Could something about the 2017 Wikitext editor be added to Wikimedia Engineering/2016-17 Q4 Goals#Editing?
What kind of thing are you expecting, and what do you think will change / who will be better served because of it? Adding more goals adds complexity to reporting but it doesn't magically create resourcing to do them.
From my perspective -- and this is based on my guess about the purpose of having quarterly goals structured as they are on the document that we're discussing, and my guess may be wrong -- highlighting that progress on the 2017 Wikitext editor as one of the quarterly goals would suggest that it is an Important Issue(TM) and not a minor maintenance issue, and that both the community and WMF leadership can expect regular updates about the project's progress. From my perspective the downside to increased reporting is modest and the upside of more visibility is very valuable.