Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science/Archive 2

message: would you like to create certified articles in science? -- Zondor 03:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia talk:Stable versions#Certification gang]] 

message: 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)
thread_title:  This project page could use some work 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Concurrency 

message: 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§β ʈ Talk 02:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The related changes special feature goes through the target page, and lists the recent changes to any link appearing on that page. Unfortunately (based on a quick test I just did) it doesn't seem to provide much useful when pointed at Special:Random. You might try asking around the Wikipedia:Village pump to see if anyone knows how to do what you want to do. --Allan McInnes 04:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your advice.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 14:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

text: User:Jitse Niesen provides such a function for the mathematics articles, but is runs on his own computer and I guess it relies on the list of mathematical articles created by User:Mathbot/User:Oleg Alexandrov. Cheers, —Ruud 16:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Special Recent changes 

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

message: 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)
replies: text: I'd be happy to contribute to this effort. --Allan McInnes 22:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Algorithms Cleanup 

message: 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)
replies: text: Sounds like a reasonable idea to me - what exactly did you have in mind? Leland McInnes 19:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've started the Computer Science Collaboration of the Week. Templates are needed for the current COTW, candidates, etc. Feel free to make any changes. Gflores Talk 22:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Collaboration of the Week/Month?

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  Implementation for deletion 

message: 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)
thread_title:  When Code is Appropriate 

message: I propose changing our userbox template from
CS	This user is a member of WikiProject Computer science.
::::to 
 
	This user is a member of WikiProject Computer science.
*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. JtkieferT | C | @  ---- 03:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm...  I like the look of it, but a lot of the userbox discussions I've read discourage images because of server load.  That, and I've spent a lot of energy trying to convince people that CS is not actually focused on computers.  I dunno, what does everybody else think?  --bmills 04:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When I first created the userbox template I considered finding an appropriate image. But then I ran across the discussions about server-load and images in userboxes that you've mentioned, with the result that I settled on the text version. I think that the points that you and Ruud make about the image itself are also valid. But IMHO they main reason to stay with "CS" (or some other relevant piece of text) is simply that images in userboxes seem to be discouraged now. --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about the whole image thing I think they might have caused the major issues with images in templates but I'm not entirely sure. JtkieferT | C | @  ---- 21:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  I think "CS" looks more professional than an image and much... much more importantly, what does the image have to do with computer science? Seems more appropriate for WikiProject Computing to me. —Ruud 04:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually in taking a fresh look at this I agree with you that CS works better and looks more professional. JtkieferT | C | @  ---- 21:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed change for userbox template 

message: * 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)
:Would it be worthwhile to put this list on the main project page, and update it regularly? --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I follow WP:AFD and WP:PROD so I will be updating this list. Don't know whether it will be noticed quicker if I post it on the talk page or the main page, especially given that the number of CS related articles up for deletion is unusually high this week. —Ruud 02:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Talk pages I guess, we can also discuss about the articles in question as well. I have read the articles and I believe some of them are useful content, although not meant for an encyclopedia. It seems such a waste to delete. Are we able to save them somewhere? -- Evanx(tag?) 02:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In that case you should vote merge, but as these articles all seem to be going to a delete, you might want to copy them into your user space or put a note at the top requesting the closing admin to move it into your user space so you can do such and so with it (incorporate them in a wikibook, fore example). —Ruud 02:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They can sometimes be transwikied.  Just vote "Transwiki" on the AFD page, I think; most original content can go te WikiBooks, though some can go to WikiSource if it's external.  --bmills 04:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it woul dbe appropriate to post thme on the talk page as well. —Ruud 16:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On AfD today 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Datatype reorganization 

message: 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)
replies: text: For most of the above, some relevant article already contains a suitable implementation in either pseudocode or actual code — so there's no pressing to convert them.  --bmills 19:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. I skimmed. Is there a list of actual code implementations that need to be converted to psuedocode? — Dzonatas 22:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, but we could use one, though. I guess most articles in :Category:Programming and :Category:Algorithms and all the enties in List of hello world programs need to be moved (hint). —Ruud 22:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD trigger happy 

message: * 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)
thread_title: New on AfD

message: 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.  Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 20:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Algorithm]] history section 

message: 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)
replies: text: This seems like almost exactly the solution I was looking for: a logical place to put implementations. I strongly recommend we update the MoS to reflect this. Leland McInnes 21:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. Although the wording could probably use some work... --Allan McInnes (talk) 21:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Note that WP content can't be transwikied there because LP doesn't use a GFDL-compatible license.  See :Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Insertion sort implementations.  —donhalcon╤ 21:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. LP uses the MIT/X11 license, and we should probably make that fact clear in the MoS. Existing WP content can't be transferred there. The recommendation is rather that new sample implementations be place on LP rather than WP. I suppose that existing content will end up in WikiBooks. --Allan McInnes (talk) 23:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

text:  I doubt most code samples are long enough to be copyrightable, and some minor modifications will probably make them original work. —Ruud 23:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Length is a rather muddy issue for copyright, and one we don't want to accidentally run afoul of.  What about WikiCities Programming or some other chunk of WikiCities, which does use the GFDL?  —donhalcon╤ 05:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literate programs wiki 

message: 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)
replies: text: Perhaps it belongs in data structure?  It seems to me that a scaled value is just a particular abstract data type.  —donhalcon╤ 18:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Scale Factor (Computer Science)]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: If the project is inactive, then you can probably do almost anything you want with it. OTOH, is there anything that would prevent you from simply working through this project? --Allan McInnes (talk) 15:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiproject programming languages and C 

message: 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)
thread_title: Recruit members

message: 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)
thread_title:  Stub sorting 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Manual of Style 

message: 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)
replies: text: See also Alphabetical list of programming languages (pretty much covered by :Category:Programming languages I would think). --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  A small case might be made for the alphabetical list, but IMO both can go. —Ruud 23:19, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I just posted a new message at Talk:Categorical list of programming languages. I've started to clean the page up, as well as categorizing the languages it lists. I'd certainly welcome any help or comments from anyone else. At present, much of the information on the list isn't reflected by the categories. Almost everything in that list can and should be reflected by categories, whether or not the list continues to exist. Of course, once the list is fully redundant, it may be harder to justify its continued existence... – Zawersh 00:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Categorical list of programming languages]] 

message: 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  message yet. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Method Engineering Project 

message: 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)
replies: text:  There's Abstraction (computer science) too. Abstraction is a major topic in computing, so it warrants a series of articles, but it's a matter of choosing the scopes. I would expect to read about architecture, leaky abstractions, Greenspun's Tenth Rule. The list you have seems fine for programming abstractions exactly. Could the line be approximated between mental abstractions (such as modularity (programming), software design pattern, software architecture, abstraction layer) and programming language abstractions (such as subroutine, software component, module (programming))? --TuukkaH 08:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of a series of articles covering different abstractions (presumably all tying back to Abstraction (computer science)). The line between "mental abstraction" and "language abstraction" seems a reasonable one. Arguably, much of computer science research has involved turning loosely-defined mental abstractions into language abstractions (of one sort or another) that make it easier to communicate, resuse, and manipulate those abstract ideas. We might also look at pairing up language abstractions with their corresponding mental abstractions, and making the link more explicit in both articles. For example, I note that modularity (programming) only mentions module (programming) in passing, and that module (programming) does not reference the mental abstraction modularity (programming) as the rationale for the language construct at all. It's probably also worth noting that some mental abstractions may not be given concrete instantiations in programming language constructs, but may show up in specification language constructs (for example, many concepts in software architecture are formalized in things like the Wright architecture description language). --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not going to be easy. I started with some structural cleanup of Abstraction (computer science) and links. --TuukkaH 09:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Design Patterns and Frameworks]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: Please do.  I object, however, to the use of the word "bureaucracy";  this is the correct process for the deletion of stub types, and these show every sign of needing to be deleted (unproposed, undersized, and poorly defined (exceptionally so in the latter case)).  Would you prefer I'd just speedied them?  Alai 00:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fine. I'm not planning on doing any stub sorting in the foreseeable future. —Ruud 14:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub sorting bureaucracy 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  Syntax colouring and {{tl|major programming languages}} 

message: 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)
replies: text: Great idea! Thanks for putting this together. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed. You might be able to do the people at Wikisource a favour be moving some of the articles here as well. —Ruud 18:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleaning up excessive code — with Wikibooks! 

message: I just made a small change to Template: ([ 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)
thread_title:  Small userbox whitespace change 

message: 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)
thread_title:  CS collaboration of the week:  Programming language 

message: See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Direct logic. —Ruud 04:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for update, I voted. -- Evanx(tag?) 20:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hewitt related AfD