Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science/Archive 2

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Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews

Wikipedia talk:Stable versions#Certification gang

would you like to create certified articles in science? -- Zondor 03:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Project Topics Computer Science Video

This project page could use some work

The project page looks a little disorganized and full of empty sections right now. I'd like to reorganize it into something more along the lines of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics. I'll start making changes in the next few days unless anyone has any objections. --Allan McInnes 07:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

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Concurrency

For anyone who's interested, I have a WikiProject-like page on improving Concurrency (computer science) articles up at User:Allan McInnes/Concurrency project. This was originally intended to serve as a WikiProject proposal, but I've since been persuaded that it makes more sense to pursue any efforts to improve the concurrency articles through this project (rather than starting a new project). However, I figured the remnants of the project proposal might serve to spark a little discussion as to what needs to be worked in the concurrency subject area. If you have any comments or suggestions, please post them here, so that we can get others involved in the discussion too. --Allan McInnes 07:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

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Manual of style?

Seems like this discussion (which I pulled off of the project page) might make a good starting point for discussing some style guidelines for CS articles. See also Wikipedia:Manual of style (mathematics) for some other ideas. --Allan McInnes 21:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Would it be worthwhile to set up a project subpage to start roughing out some guidelines? It would also give others something to comment on (or contribute to). --Allan McInnes 03:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I have created a project subpage within which to draft a manual of style. Perhaps we should carry on any further discussions on the talk page of that subpage. --Allan McInnes 22:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

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Special Recent changes

I saw the Rencent Changes you had set up on the project page, and I was wondering how it worked. Could something similar be set-up with and random article fucntion?--Birgitte§? ? Talk 02:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

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Programming language theory

I had proposed a WikiProject on programming language theory (and I just wrote the aformentioned article; please feel free to improve it!), and was informed about this project by Allen. Any other members of the project interested in PLT?

--EngineerScotty 06:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd recommend just working through this wikiproject until you feel the signal to noise ratio gets too low. You don't get much more core CS than programming language theory. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 03:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

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Foreign function interface

Another article for peer review; foreign function interface. --EngineerScotty 07:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

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Algorithms Cleanup

While hunting through the algorithms articles to find out what the current common styles of formatting pseudocode are I noticed that a great many of the articles in Category:Algorithms could benefit from some quick copyediting and formatting. This is often the case becaues the article is somewhat rarely visited and hasn't had the attention it deserves. This means there's an easy project available for people in this Wikiproject: Go through articles in Category:Algorithms and give them at least a cursory cleanup.

Suggestions for formatting pseudocode (based on what the existing standards seem to be) can be found on Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/Manual of style (computer science). If enough people are interested we can start keeping tally of what articles have been checked. Leland McInnes 18:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

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Portal

Right now, Portal:Computer science points at Portal:Information technology. That portal looks nice enough, but is pretty general. Would it be worthwhile to have a more focused CS portal? (Obviously I think so, otherwise I wouldn't be asking :-) If so, is anyone interested in putting together and maintaining such a CS portal? I'm willing to work on it, but don't want to be the only one putting any effort in. --Allan McInnes 22:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

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Good articles

I added a list of Good articles. If possible, we should articles that fit that criteria and label them with {{GA}}.

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Collaboration of the Week/Month?

Am wondering how many people would be interested in having a Cot(W/M)? Too soon? Comments are welcome. Gflores ^Talk 02:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

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Enterprise resource planning

I took the liberty of adding link to this project from talk pages of this article, since I believe there is a vast area of major business and industry computer applications that are found in hundreds of thousands of companies world wide, but not much more than stubs in Wikipedia. User:AlMac|^(talk) 11:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Computer security audit

I took the liberty of connecting this article to this project. I recognize there are important topics in the field of computers that are not part of computer science. It might be helpful if someone was to provide some definitions so as to help focus what computer topics do not belong in this project. User:AlMac|^(talk) 11:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The WikiProject Computer science template

Crosspost from my talk page:

I was unsure about putting the WikiProject CS notice on MATLAB when I was going through my watchlist tagging. It's a programming language, and other programming languages certainly deserve the tag. I wouldn't think of the tag as a "territory grab" (as though no other WikiProject can claim its relevance), but I'll leave it off as dubious. In the end, I think most computer scientists would be embarassed about the program, so it's best this way. :) --Mgreenbe 20:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

we use something like

Think that would help at all? --Allan McInnes (talk) 22:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

A side benefit is that this provides a theoretical means for removing the tags: if it can be deemed that no participants are maintaining the page then the tag can be removed. Leland McInnes 23:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. Maybe the solution is to have 2 templates then -- one that is simply advertising (my weaker suggested wording), and one that indicates that the article in question is actively being looked at and worked on by project members (your suggested wording). Anyone else have any opinions on this? --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess we haven't actually achieved a consensus on this, aside from a general dissatisfaction with the current (territorial) template. So here are the possibilities from what I can see:

1. "This article is related to..."
2. "This article is supported by..."
3. "Editors working on this article may also be interested in..."

Personally, I'm happy with any of them, but am leaning towards number 1, since it is "more standard" but doesn't make any claims that we're actively supporting a particular article. Opinions from others? Unless I hear anything in the next day or so, I'll go ahead and change the template to read "This article is related to..." --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've updated the template, and posted it in the template messages table as Mgreenbe suggested earlier. We now return you to your regularly scheduled CS wiki-activities. --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Poll

I have started a poll at Template_talk:WikiProject_Computer_science#Poll. --Ruud 19:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

template inclusion

Should we be including the Wikiproject CS template on programming languages and frameworks (such as Perl, C#, .NET... etc)? Gflores ^Talk 16:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see a problem with putting the template on those talk pages. I understand Rudy's concerns, but I'm skeptical that people will come here specifically to argue about just PL issues. They're more likely to continue those arguments at a PL-specific talk page. If things get out of hand here, we can always ask the offenders to take it somewhere else.

The whole reason I merged in my "highly specialized project" was to be able to get input from a wider number of people, who wouldn't otherwise know what I was up to. In the same way, I think we're probably better off casting as wide a net as possible, in the hopes of getting useful contributions from people who might not otherwise be involved. We've got an ambitious project here, and the more help we have, the better. Not to mention that, by casting a wider net, we have a chance to reach people who may have only a narrow understanding of CS, and show them a much broader view of the discipline. That's the kind of thing that can change lives, and being improve the discipline as a whole. Seems like a worthy goal for a project like this :-)

--Allan McInnes (talk) 18:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

For those keeping track, the template now reads "This article is supported by WikiProject Computer science.", as a result of the most recent edit by User:Dzonatas. So I guess the question now is, does this project "support" (for example) the Perl article? --Allan McInnes (talk) 00:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Implementation for deletion

I've put Quicksort implementations up for deletion, as I don't believe that implementations belong in an encyclopedia, however useful or interesting they may be. Discuss! --bmills 16:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

When Code is Appropriate

With Quicksort implementations up for deletion under the Wikipedia is not a source code repository policy, it raises the question of guidelines on exactly when source code (as opposed to generic pseudocode) is and is not appropriate. Feel free to join the discussion at the manual of style talk page. Leland McInnes 22:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change for userbox template

I propose changing our userbox template from

• The reasoning behind this is that A) the image makes it look a lot nice than just pure text (and yes I did confirm that it was an image we can use) and B) it illustrates at a glance that we're a comp sci oriented group. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 03:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

On AfD today

• Quicksort implementations (transwikied and deleted)
• 99 Bottles of Beer computer program 2 (already transwikied and deleted)
• XML-RPC Implementations (deleted)
• Floyd-Warshall algorithm/C implementation (deleted)
• Theoretical foundation of polymorphism (deleted)
• Nice class (nicely deleted)

As a partially related issue: what about having a list of articles that are currently featured articles candidates, articles currently on peer review or submitted for "good" status? - Liberatore(T) 13:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Datatype reorganization

At Talk:Datatype, there's a discussion and related vote about reorganization of datatype, one of the articles listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/WP1.0. The first step is a request to move the current datatype to Type system, the idea being to better match the current content and to make space for new, more practical articles on data types. --TuukkaH 07:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

AfD update

• CRAM-MD5 -- Proposed for deletion, but rewritten (not currently proposed for deletion)
• LanguageOrientedProgramming -- Proposed for deletion, deleted.
• Fractal cryptography -- Articles for deletion, deleted.
• List of hello world programs -- AfD -- kept
• Hello world program in esoteric languages -- prodded (and poked and jabbed) -- kept
• Fibonacci number program -- prodded (some of its useful information should be moved somewhere useful) -- kept
• Insertion sort implementations (AfD) -- to be transwikied, then deleted
• Selection sort implementations (AfD) -- to be transwikied, then deleted
• List of multi-threading libraries (AfD) -- deleted
• Stooge sort#Java (since it's only a section, see Talk:Stooge sort) -- translated to pseudocode
• VALGOL programming language, SIMPLE programming language, SLOBOL programming language, LAIDBACK, Sartre programming language, FIFTH programming language, C- programming language, LITHP programming language, DOGO programming language -- no consensus, admin suggests merge

AfD trigger happy

I see the reason to delete these because of the repository sense, but is there an effort to covert them to psuedocode? -- Dzonatas 19:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Esoteric programming languages

• 0x29A - afd, deleted
• 4DL programming language - afd, deleted
• HQ9+ - afd, no consensus
• Beatnik programming language - afd, no consensus
• Condit programming language - prod, deleted
• Choon - redirected to Ch?on
• Borg programming language - prod, deleted
• BDAMD - afd, deleted
• Argh! - afd -- no consensus
• 23 programming language - prod, deleted
• Wierd programming language - deprodded
• David Morgan-Mar - afd
• Piet programming language - afd
• Ook! programming language - afd
• Chef programming language - afd
• Whenever - afd
• Sean Heber - afd
• Whirl - afd
• COW programming language - afd
• ZT programming language - prod, redirected
• XXC programming language - prod, deleted

Esoteric programming languages were mass-nominated for deletion in September 2004, which was strongly opposed. The contents of these pages could be moved as descriptions under list of esoteric programming languages or the articles could just be merged into one esoteric programming languages article (changing it to its own article instead of being a redirect, like now). "Non-notability", which seems to be your point, is not a justification for deletion (WP:DEL) and merging is suggested. --ZeroOne 01:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

DanielCristofani 00:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

By non-project members

• List of basic computer science topics - afd -- no consensus
• Bedroom programming - afd -- deleted
• Database instance - afd -- redirected

New on AfD

• Most of Category:Software comparison will be either prodded or in AfD by March 8. In AfD so far:
  • Comparison of web browsers
  • Comparison of Internet forum software
  • Comparison of BitTorrent software
  • Comparison of file systems

Expect more comparisons to show up in the next couple of weeks, after any reasonable content can be salvaged. --donhalcon^? 14:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Tiny programming languages
• Lists of computer syntax patterns --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Algorithm history section

I know it's on the todo list but I think that if someone can get around to rewriting it it is a fairly critical priority since it is absolutely incomprehensible and impossible to read. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 20:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Literate programs wiki

Deco has started a new, Mediawiki-based site called Literate Programs. The intent is to provide MIT-licensed code in a literate form that explains the algorithm and implementation. Deco has provided a simple way to extract and download the code too. This seems like both a worthy project in its own right, and a great place to stick all of those "sample implementations" that are being AfDed as unencyclopedic. We might also consider adding some guidance to the WPCS manual of style that recommends providing an appropriate LP link for any algorithm description. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Scale Factor (Computer Science)

I was going to suggest that this article be merged, but cannot figure out where exactly it should be merged to. Is there an article around anywhere which discusses the application of numerical analysis (generation and propagation of errors) to the various representations of numbers? EricR 20:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject programming languages and C

Those two projects are both inactive. As I'm currently working on C/C++ related things, can I refurnish the C project into a C++ project (which includes C, of coz) and put it back? Deryck C. 08:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is, I'd be very annoyed if I nobody joins. Deryck C. 10:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Recruit members

The newly set-up WikiProject C++ is now recruiting members. Please join if you are interested in C++ programming. Deryck C. 14:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Stub sorting

I've started cleaning up Category:Computer science. I think a new stub-type woudl help (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals#.7B.7Bprogramming-stub.7D.7D). --Ruud 18:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Manual of Style

The Manual of Style seems to have become increasingly stable of late. It still requires a little work however. I have filled in some suggested structure for Theorem or Conjecture article and Classic Problem articles, but Definitions could use some work. In general however, I feel that it is beginning to take shape. Could we all go through and make sure it meets our approval, make changes or suggestions on the talk page where it does not, and try and beat it into a solid state that we can expect to remain fairly stable and largely satisfactory with all participants? Thanks. Leland McInnes 21:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Guarded suspension

Does anyone know whether this is different from a condition variable? Seems like a redirect candidate to me. Gazpacho 05:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Abstract data type cleanup

Hi all! I noticed there's a lot to be cleaned up regarding abstract data types, starting from the article itself. A problem seen in Queue, Stack (data structure) etc. is that they don't consider the abstract data type -- or at least not in a uniform manner. I sketched Stack (data structure)#Abstract data type, what do you people think? On the other hand, List doesn't seem to fit in Linked list. An important missing piece is Container (data structure) or Collection (data structure).

Here's something our style guide could also try to address at Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/Manual of style (computer science)#Algorithms and Data Structures.

Abstract data type topics on the list Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/WP1.0 include Array, Graph (mathematics) (should be changed to Graph (data structure)?), List, String (computer science), Tree (data structure). --TuukkaH 21:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Categorical list of programming languages

I've just posted a question over at Talk:Categorical list of programming languages, asking why this article shouldn't be eliminated in favour of simply using Wikipedia's category system (it is a categorical list after all :-). Thoughts from anyone else are welcome here, or better yet at Talk:Categorical list of programming languages. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

A special programming language

My friend has invented a programming language called Ting++, named after himself, has its own, complete syntaxes, is published on the web, but isn't widely known. Can it have a space in Wikipedia?

A little background information: the inventor is quite a well-known programmer in Hong Kong. He's one of the two Hong Kong representatives in Canadian Computing Competition 2006 and has won two individual champions in some programming competitions in Hong Kong, the bigger one hosting about 600 contestants. --Deryck C. 09:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

He's published some docs and the interpreter, but the public didn't quite notice it. --Deryck C. 09:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

C/C++ "manual" articles

I think fgets et al should be transwikied out of Wikipedia. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject C++. --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-04-12 09:38Z

Method Engineering Project

As some of you are already aware, a group from the University of Utrecht has been adding a large number of software-engineering-related articles to Wikipedia, under the aegis of a method engineering wikiproject. Unfortunately, these articles are of variable quality. Some are not really appropriate for Wikipedia. Many fail to follow Wikipedia style conventions. In some cases, they duplicate information already contained in other WP articles. There are also concerns with the potenitally closed nature of the Utrecht group, and their lack of engagement in the larger Wikipedia community.

Having said all of that, there is a large amount of content added by the method engineering group that is good, and can usefully be incorporated into Wikipedia. I'd like to encourage any WPCS project participants who have an interest in software engineering to take a look at the articles produced by the method engineering group (Ruud, thanks for your efforts in tagging these articles!), and to help get these articles

• cleaned up
• checked for correctness
• made compliant with WP:STYLE
• better crosslinked with the rest of Wikipedia
• merged where appropriate
• AfDed where necessary

You may also want to weigh in on the discussion at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Method Engineering Encyclopedia.

Finally, I'd like to encourage WPCS participants to try to draw users that appear to be part of the Utrecht group further into the Wikipedia community. Many of these users only edit one or two obscure method engineering articles. As a result, they have often escaped the notice of other Wikipedians, and haven't even received a {{welcome}} message yet. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Design Patterns and Frameworks

I just stumbled across Design Patterns and Frameworks. I was going to suggest a merge with Design pattern (computer science) (and perhaps Framework), but it's not obvious to me that there's any useful content in Design Patterns and Frameworks (not to mention a total lack of references). Anyone else see anything of value there? Or should the article just be AfDed? --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe a page called software abstractions which categorized and distinguished between things such as components, libraries, patterns, templates, macros, frameworks, modules, packages, idioms, classes, etc. (assuming concrete definitions for these can be established) might be a useful page. If such a page were created, DP&F could redirect there. Otherwise, AfD. Actually, I vote to nuke; we can always create the redirect later, and the history indicates that the material is available outside Wikipedia. --EngineerScotty 22:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Javolution?

Recently, I've seen links to Javolution (and the related JScience) pop up in several articles that I track. Now, I've never heard of Javolution before. But then I don't do much real-time Java programming. However, from the history, the Javolution article seems to have been written almost entirely by the primary developer of the Javolution library. The same goes for JScience (also by the same developer).

Has anyone here heard of or used these libraries before? Are they actually notable, or is this a case of a developer spamming Wikipedia to advertise his product? The Javolution article in particular looks a lot like advertising, since it's primarily a bulleted list of features with external links to the Javolution website rather than any explanation of the features.

--Allan McInnes (talk) 16:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Stub sorting bureaucracy

See Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion#.7B.7BCompu-prog-stub.7D.7D_.2F_Cat:Computer_programming_stubs and Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion#.7B.7BInfo-sci-stub.7D.7D_.2F_Cat:Information_science_stubs. --Ruud 17:01, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Elemental programming and Algorithm

Elemental programming is up for deletion and I have listed Algorithm as a Featured article removal candidate. --Ruud 23:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Stub Icon

I noticed in Template talk:Comp-sci-stub that there was some dissatisfaction over the current icon used for the stubs since downscaling it so strongly degrades the image substantially. I was bored, so I created two candidate icons.

Candidate 1: (deleted)

Candidate 2: (deleted)

Graphics arts isn't my thing, plus I'm color blind, so if they're lousy feel free to say so. :) -- Zawersh 11:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the reaction to the latest proposal seems pretty positive. I've gone ahead and changed the stub template to use candidate 3. --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Turns out, there are a lot of other comp-sci-related stub templates that use the old image. Should we go ahead and swap the images on those too? Although some of them, like AI or Computer engineering, really should have their own, more relevant images. ~ Booya ^Bazooka 03:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

although that's possibly still scaled too small. --Allan McInnes (talk) 06:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Syntax colouring and {{major programming languages}}

See MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Syntax_Highlighting_Proposal and Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 25#Template:Major_programming_languages. --Ruud 22:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning up excessive code -- with Wikibooks!

In effort to cleanup algorithm articles with too much code implementation (I strongly support pseudocode), I've created a Wikibook called Algorithm implementation where these code examples can be transwikied. The "book" at this point is just a pile of some code that I've thrown on it, but the idea is that these implementations can be explained and elaborated on, to make it a legitimate book, as well as a place to dump our unwanted code ;) ~ Booya ^Bazooka 06:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Small userbox whitespace change

I just made a small change to Template:User WP CS (edit discuss links history) to remove some extra whitespace that was between the userbox's end span and the noinclude section. The extra whitespace was forcing a newline (which I don't think userboxes are supposed to do). Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone objects. -- Zawersh 20:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

CS collaboration of the week: Programming language

We have three votes for programming language as the CS collaboration of the week, so it's official. Please join in helping improve the article. Ideogram 23:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hewitt related AfD

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Direct logic. --Ruud 04:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Source of the article : Wikipedia