Talk:Patch (computing)

message: : Historically, patches were normally obtained from the software developer via a disk or CD-ROM via mail.
No, historically, patches were distributed on paper tape or punched cards, and the recipient was expected to cut out the indicated part of the original tape (or deck), and patch in (hence the name) the replacement segment.  Then they were distributed on magnetic tape.  Then, after removeable disk drives had been invented, they were distributed on magnetic disk.  CD-ROM is a very recent technology in the history of computing.  This article has numerous other shortcomings, but I'll wait until the discussion above settles out before trying to make sense of it all.  18.24.0.120 04:51, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, that is exactly the kind of input we love here at the 'pedia! Please feel free to make the change when you like. I plan to fix the whole Unix command thing soon (today). —Frecklefoot 15:55, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Okay, I moved the Unix stuff. Go ahead and edit away! :^) —Frecklefoot 16:36, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: I merged in 18.24.0.120 comments (almost word for word) into the history comment (since it didn't look like s/he was going to return). Just out of curiosity, what other shortcomings do you see? —Frecklefoot 16:35, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: History too recent

message: Just note I rewored PC game to computer games because PC games sound excluding Mac games. Just case you wonder. -- Taku 16:47, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
:Noted. —Frecklefoot 17:18, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Games are not just PC

message: * Talk:Patch (computing) - we have been having discussion whether the article should be devoted to a patch as a program as well as a patch as a update. The point in short is that patch as a program might not make sense to people outside unix. -- Taku 05:07, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
** Why not just have two articles, one on the patch-as-an-update, and one on the Unix tool? -- Timwi 14:14, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  From [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment]] 

message: Well, now the article makes no mention of Larry Wall and his historically important patch utility at all. Soooo, it also will fail to explain things down the road like diff (the antyonym of patch),  CVS (which uses diff and patch), and we can then go on through version control systems, and etc... all the way down to how the wikipedia itself operates. (That might count as a whoops). And the patch program isn't just used under unix, no. I think you just found that out by looking at those links. 
What people seem to be doing here is optimising this article locally, but are forgetting that their edits might pessimize the wikipedia globally. Most of the time you can safely forget the details and to heck with it, but sometimes you need to remember that you're actually editing a hypertext. Just my 2 cents. :-) (I think editing this article might be something to do in my Copious Free Time) Kim Bruning 09:53, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article as current might be a bit of a problem 

message: I removed the following paragraph from the Computer games section:
:Strategy games (RTS games) that allow players to play with unique starting advantages and disadvantages rely on patches to ensure that every playable "faction" is equal compared to the others.  These patches are referred to as "balance changes" and their importance depends directly on the relative importannce of the starting advantages and disadvantages to the overall gameplay as well as the sheer number of factions.  Thus games where most factions are essentially equal (most older strategy games, including Risk and Civilization II) require much less balance changes than games that provide important starting differences (Total Annihilation) or have an immense number of slightly different races (Age of Empires II, Civilization III).  At the extrememes are games like Rise of Nations, which offers a huge selection of substantially different factions to choose from, and the Blizzard games Starcraft and Warcraft III, where the small number of factions play completely different from each other.  These games require many successive patches before they can be considered even reasonably balanced, and many players believe that games like Warcraft III will never be completely balanced.
As is apparent, it is almost completely off-topic.  It talks about balancing in strategy games, which has nothing to do with this article.  Feel free to slap it somewhere else where it may be appropriate.  Just wikify it first (game titles should be italicized). :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:15, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
:Frecklefoot, I am looking for suggestions as to where to put material on the types and purposes of game patches (especially to fix bugs, exploits, and make balance changes).  Do you think a site titled "Patch (Computer gaming)" would be appopriate? Or is that misleading (because the focus wouldn't be on technical issues)?  Also while I think you are right about my material being not relevant to the general concept of "patches", I think the correct label would be "ramble" or "digression", as "rant" implies anger, and I assure you I was quite happy when I wrote it. ;-) RampagingCarrot 22:28, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Strategy game rant

message: I recently updated the section to clarify what disaster means (from a previous editor): . Updated version:
A motherboard BIOS update is an example of a common firmware patch. Any unexpected error or interruption, like a power outage, during the update might mean the motherboard is rendered unusable. Motherboard vendors try to reduce the chance of this from happening. 
My questions are - how do the motherboard vendors do this? And should it be mentioned here?--Unixguy 12:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Application section - firmware update failure 

message: I have a vista laptop and sometimes I turn on my computer it says "system failed to start" something along those lines, so I run startup repair and look at the details and report at the end it said: "patch kept system from starting"
What does that mean?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.175.123.241 (talk) 18:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, we're not a help site.  This page is for discussing ways to improve the article.  You'll have to try a help board on the Internet or someplace like MSDN. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 22:13, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Vista patch killing startup

message: I'm getting rid of the Tools section. It provides little useful information and is very subjective. For example, it seems to suggest that there are NO tools for patching .NET applications and that the only tools for Java and other systems are the ones listed. I can't see any way of making this section without it either be way too long or just too narrow. If we had something like List of patching software or something similar, we could link to it. But it would be inappropriate for such a list within this article. Getting rid of links to other patching solutions in the See also section; subjective. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 02:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Striking Tools section

message: This is a specific term for patches historically used by IBM. As such, it does not make sense to form an article of its own, but it could sensibly be mentioned on a general article (as an example of vendor-specific terminology) SJK (talk) 09:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello!  Based on a quick Google search, I would say that "Corrective Service Diskette", as a term, seems notable enough to warrant a separate article.  It surely has significant historical value. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 21:03, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think its notability can't simply be established on the basis of how many times it is used. A "Corrective Service Diskette" is simply a term IBM used for patches shipped on floppy disk format. There is really nothing else to say about the topic than that. Since IBM issued CSDs for a wide range of different products, CSDs don't necessarily have anything in common with each other beyond being patches shipped on floppy disks. Given this, Corrective Service Diskette is going to always me a WP:PERMASTUB, and as such is better merged into a more general article like this one. SJK (talk) 01:59, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hm, I'm really not sure about it, so we should probably wait for more opinions from other editors. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 20:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

text: . Merged per WP:SIZERULE. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge with [[Corrective Service Diskette]] 

message: The Slipstream (computing) article is too small (WP:SIZERULE), has no potential for growth and already contains original research that would eventually be deleted, making it even smaller. Codename Lisa (talk) 07:55, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge with [[Slipstream (computing)]] 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 4 external links on Patch (computing). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091016074048/http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0%2C28348%2C26208289-5014239%2C00.html to http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0%2C28348%2C26208289-5014239%2C00.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.apache.org/info.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140330084636/http://timreview.ca/article/294 to http://timreview.ca/article/294
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080514023816/http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/07-sep/o57field.html to http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/07-sep/o57field.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:03, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Reference [2] was marked for improvement. I think the Dutch version of this page  has the needed info. The relevant part translates as:
If there are bugs or shortcomings in software that is used by companies or individuals, these can often be eliminated by applying a patch. In this case, a patch is an adaptation of existing software to improve the errors or bugs in that software. These errors can range from calculation errors, security errors to the no longer crashing or malfunctioning of the software. A patch is used in the following cases, but occasionally complete software packages are replaced.
Can we use a similar article in another language as reference?
The Dutch entry has no references at all.
Frank Vogelezang (talk) 14:24, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Other language versions of Wikipedia are not acceptable as references, sorry. Ideally the reference would be to something like a published book, magazine, journal, etc. Something like this maybe:  SJK (talk) 00:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference