Wikifunctions is a new site that has been added to the list of sites operated by WMF. I definitely see uses for it in automating updates on Wikipedia and bots (and also for programmers to reference), but their goal is to translate Wikipedia articles to more languages by writing them in code that has a lot of linguistic information. I have mixed feelings about this, as I don’t like existing programs that automatically generate articles (see the Cebuano and Dutch Wikipedias), and I worry that the system will be too complicated for average people.
This problem was solved in like 2012 or 2013 with the introduction of Wikidata, but not all language editions have decided to use that.
How common is it in English? I haven’t checked a lot of articles, but I did check the source of the English and French NYC articles I linked and it seems like all the information is hardcoded, not referenced from Wikidata.
I think enwiki tends to use Wikidata relatively sparingly.
Some people like their little power they call “meritocracy” to decide what belongs in the article and what doesn’t.