Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing

AfDProposed deletion of Number cruncher.

There is a proposed deletion n AdD in progress for the article Number cruncher.

My feeling is that we should have an article on this topic - but the article that's there right now is really pretty terrible - and as such I don't feel justified in opposing the deletion. It would be A Very Good Thing if someone with some time on their hands could remove the AfDWP:PROD template and give it some TLC.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:42, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

FWIW: a) it is not an AfD, but another process, WP:PROD. Within this process, anybody can simply remove {prod} template to stop this process (to indicate that there is no consensus on deletion) - then it might be submitted to AfD. b) personally I don't think that having this page is a good idea, and would support deleting it on AfD, though if you can find another article where to put a section on it and make a redirect from Number crunching there, I certainly won't object. Ipsign (talk) 15:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - I don't follow all the technicalities of WP processes - the fact is that the article will be deleted unless we do something to improve it. The grounds for deleting it are claimed to be that "Number cruncher" is jargon - but then what computing pages aren't?! Byte is also jargon - we're not contemplating deleting that! SteveBaker (talk) 14:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The grounds for deletion don't matter at all. So long as the article merely gets deleted by prod, everybody is free to recreate it. So long as nobody can be bothered to write a real article, this deletion without prejudice to recreation, is the best thing that can happen. If you remove the prod it will probably go to AfD and be subject to the usual inclusionist/exclusionist battles. As a result, it will likely be either deleted with prejudice, or will have to be improved immediately. Hans Adler 14:55, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh great! Don't you just love Wikipolitics? You have to allow an article that you think should stay to be deleted in order that you'll be able to recreate it. <sigh> SteveBaker (talk) 18:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of Comparison of MPI, OpenMP, and Stream Processing

Please comment on AfD for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of MPI, OpenMP, and Stream Processing (3rd nomination) (2nd nomination didn't get any feedback, so it got re-nominated). Ipsign (talk) 10:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Modular computering cluster

For your information: Modular computering cluster has been proposed for deletion. -- Crowsnest (talk) 00:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

BeeCard

Hello, my friends: A group of us are working on clearing the backlog at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources_from_October_2006. The article in the above header has been without sources for the past four years and might b e removed if none are added. I wonder if you can help find one or two good references. Sincerely, and all the best to you, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:43, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done Good luck with your project. --Kvng (talk) 17:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Help on new article

Hi, could somebody help me verify if this article can be published? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jordi.ros/Labdoo). I was wondering if it would be proper to put this article under your category and what needs to be done to do so. Thanks. Jordi.ros (talk) 11:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, and welcome to Wikipedia! Labdoo sounds like an interesting and worthwhile project. I can't tell yet whether the project meets Wikipedia's notability criteria for websites. You may want to start by reading that, and then seeing if you can identify some reliable and independent sources that provide substantial coverage.

I also encourage you to read these:

• Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Citing sources
• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
• Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

--Pnm (talk) 08:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

In general, to satisfy criteria of WP:NOTABILITY, references to some third-party coverage in reliable sources should be demonstrated. IMHO, currently such coverage is not demonstrated at all. Ipsign (talk) 12:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Linearizability and atomic operation

Does anyone else want to weigh in on the best title for the Linearizability article? I'm fairly convinced that Linearizability is not it and I think there's a weak consensus. So far there have been only two of us involved in the discussion and this has apparently been bouncing around for years - Talk:Linearizability#linearizability_and_atomic_operation --Kvng (talk) 20:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Connectivity (computer science)

I just nominated Connectivity (computer science) for deletion. If you're interested, please participate in the discussion. --Pnm (talk) 00:11, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Another: Cohort (computer science) (Discuss) --Pnm (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Another: Clumping (computer science) (Discuss) --Pnm (talk) 02:22, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Another: Inversion (computer science) (Discuss) --Pnm (talk) 02:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

A PROD: Sequel (computer science) --Pnm (talk) 02:43, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Afd: Adaptability (computer science) and Adaptivity (computer science) (Discuss) --Pnm (talk) 03:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move of two groups of articles

I'm posting this here because it affects so many articles and WP:RM seems unwieldy.

Proposal (1): Rename the articles below from Article (computer science) to Article (computing).

Reason: Computing is a broader topic than computer science, and these topics apply to computing broadly, not just to the study of computing. Authors who are unfamiliar with computer science will feel more comfortable editing a computing article.

Barrier (computer science)

Binding (computer science)

Branch (computer science)

Coalescing (computer science)

Concurrency (computer science)

Default (computer science)

Design pattern (computer science)

Fiber (computer science)

Field (computer science)

Function composition (computer science)

Garbage (computer science)

Garbage collection (computer science)

Instruction (computer science)

Integer (computer science)

Lock (computer science)

Macro (computer science)

Namespace (computer science)

Node (computer science)

Offset (computer science)

Overwriting (computer science)

Persistence (computer science)

Polling (computer science)

Pool (computer science)

Record (computer science)

Recursion (computer science)

Reification (computer science)

Relocation (computer science)

Replication (computer science)

Resource (computer science)

Robustness (computer science)

Scale factor (computer science)

Self-management (computer science)

Session (computer science)

Set (computer science)

Slipstream (computer science)

Swap (computer science)

Synchronization (computer science)

Thrashing (computer science)

Thread (computer science)

Value (computer science)

Proposal (2): Rename the articles below from Article (computer science) to Article (computer programming).

Reason: These topics apply to computer programming broadly, not just to the study of computing. Authors who are unfamiliar with computer science will feel more comfortable editing a computer programming article.

Action at a distance (computer science)

Aspect (computer science)

Assignment (computer science)

Blind faith (computer science)

Callback (computer science)

Class (computer science)

Closure (computer science)

Cohesion (computer science)

Concern (computer science)

Containment (computer science)

Coupling (computer science)

Covariance and contravariance (computer science)

Declaration (computer science)

Destructor (computer science)

Generator (computer science)

Hot spot (computer science)

Literal (computer science)

Marshalling (computer science)

Method (computer science)

Parameter (computer science)

Poltergeist (computer science)

Range (computer science)

Reference (computer science)

Reflection (computer science)

Side effect (computer science)

Skeleton (computer science)

Subclass (computer science)

Superclass (computer science)

Trait (computer science)

this (computer science)

--Pnm (talk) 05:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

What's basically missing here is a description of the scope of computer science as opposed to computer programming or computing. The only reasoning I can see here is that authors would feel uncomfortable editing an article with 'science' in the title and therefore you want to move anything you can to some other title. Would that be correct? In that case we have to decide

Firstly: Should we avoid titles with science in the title and try and rename current articles to something more 'friendly'.

In either case what is computer science and what would be classed as tgat as opposed to computing or computer programming?

For instance to take the first entry in each section. Why is Barrier (computer science) more general computing rather than a computer science or programming term? Why is Action at a distance (computer science) more a programming term than a computer science term? Dmcq (talk) 09:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Well... I clearly agree with some, disagree with some others and am fairly sure that for most one can make an as convincing argument to put it into one category as in the other. The disambiguation tag should probably correspond with the category the article is placed into. E.g. "covariance and contravariance (computer science)" is really a topic in type theory/programming language theory and should therefore probably be disambiguated with "computer science" instead of "computer programming". Similarly the "concurrency (computer science)" article is (should) mostly be about the theory of concurrency, not a list of all applications of concurrency in computing systems, and therefore be placed in computer science instead of computing. For "garbage collection (computer science)" I could probably make an equally convincing case for all three the disambiguation tags. —Ruud 19:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think editors will be uncomfortable editing articles that they think should be academic in nature. It isn't the word science per se, but computer science's academic denotation. Though computer scientists of course study computer programming, programming is primarily a practical, non-academic topic.

• It appears that Action at a distance (computer science) – and for that matter Design pattern (computer science) – are mostly used by programmers – non-academics.
• Barrier (computer science) really is a parallel computing term, so instead of the move I originally proposed I'd support Barrier (computer science) -> Barrier (parallel computing). (Same for Thread (computer science), Thrashing (computer science), Lock (computer science), Fiber (computer science).)
• Ruud makes a good point about Concurrency (computer science). I noticed we have Concurrent computing so I no longer support moving Concurrency (computer science) to Concurrency (computing), but moving it to Theory of concurrent computing instead.
• Good point about Covariance and contravariance (computer science), too. I suggest moving to Covariant and contravariant types.
• I think Garbage collection (computing) is the best name precisely because of the arguments Ruud makes.

In response to User:Dmcq's question defining computer science, perhaps it would be helpful to propose a guideline:

1. Use (computer science) to disambiguate computing topics whose primary context is academic.
2. Use (computer programming) for topics whose primary context is computer programming.
3. Use (computing) for topics which are used widely by academics and non-academics, and aren't specific to programming or a more specific subdomain.

By analogy, consider religion and theology. The "study of religion" is broad enough to include any religion topic. But the meta-topic Schism (religion) isn't named Schism (theology) – and I think appropriately not. --Pnm (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with most of your reasoning and conclusions here. I'll discuss them point by point:

Most of these topics should in fact be discussed from an "academic" point of view as this really is the only point of view that is supported by reliable sources. For example, Covariance and contravariance are well known and studied topics in academic literature but this theory has only really be applied and very recent languages such as Scala. Clearly these issues have plagued Java programmers, but the issues should be discussed firstly from a theoretical point of view only later moving on the what can go wrong in particular programming languages. I do not believe the disambiguation tag "computer science" will scare away any potential contributors, but if it does I doubt they would have been fit to contribute in the first place.

• Agree, so either Design pattern (software engineering) or Design pattern (computer programming).
• I think Barrier (computer science) is fine, otherwise Barrier (concurrency) (not parallel computing!), but I'm not in favour of creating too many additional disambiguation tags.
• Again I think Concurrency (computer science) is fine, definitely not Theory of concurrent computing as this would imply we should move General relativity to Theory of general relativity.
• Perhaps, although "making an equally convincing argument" does not really imply that.

My guidelines would be:

1. Use (computer science) to disambiguate computing topics which are studied academically and mainly "abstract" concepts.
2. Use (computer programming) (and perhaps also (software engineering)) for topics whose primary context is computer programming, programming language theory and software engineering.
3. Use (computing) for anything else, which will mostly be "concrete" concepts such as particular computer programs or communication protocols etc.

If we apply your reasoning to other field you would suggest most articles from (mathematics) to (calculation), (physics) to (engineering), (philosophy) to (thinking), etc. —Ruud 19:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed Concurrency (computer science) and Covariance and contravariance (computer science) – and all the contentious articles except Action at a distance (computer science) -> Action at a distance (computer programming), which I think may still have a consensus to move.

Ruud, you may not have noticed that I made those changes after my last post, and I'm sorry I didn't bring your attention to it explicitly. Comparing your proposed guidelines to mine, it sounds like you would support proposal (2) as amended. Is that correct? --Pnm (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of any proposal that reduces the number of parenthetical disambiguation thingies we use. It appears we have (computing), (computer science) and (computer programming). Are there others related to computing? Is it too bold to suggest that everything becomes (computing) and we let categories do the rest of the work? --Kvng (talk) 14:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's a sampling (see also this list):

• Atomicity (database systems)
• Join (SQL)
• Rollback (data management)
• View (database)
• Bloomfield (microprocessor)
• Calculator (Windows)
• Cat (Unix)
• Cd (command)
• Nehalem (microarchitecture)
• Android (operating system)
• Stack (data structure)
• Frame Technology (software engineering)
• IOS (Apple)
• Java (software platform)
• Java (programming language)
• Reengineering (software)
• Security service (telecommunication)
• Hacker (computer security)
• Hacker (programmer subculture)
• Hacker (hobbyist)
• Spam (electronic)
• Amaya (web browser)
• Bonjour (software)
• Mail (application)
• Nebulae (computer)
• Dropbox (service)
• 1984 (advertisement)

I strongly oppose merging them all into (computing), though I'd like to avoid parenthetical disambiguation whenever possible (per WP:NCDAB and in some cases WP:COMMONNAME). For example IOS (Apple) -> Apple iOS, Calculator (Windows) -> Windows Calculator, Mail (application) -> Apple Mail. --Pnm (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Disagree with reducing it to just "computing" as well. But looking at the examples you gave reducing the tags to "computing", "computer science" and "computer programming" (and possible "software engineering") might well be feasible. I believe there are quite a few articles disambiguated with "data structure", those could be placed under "computer science" but I'm not entirely sure if that would be an improvement. —Ruud 19:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Then it seems that we'll either leave titles alone or assess each individually. Developing criteria for disambiguation categories and applying them will apparently take patience. I don't feel strongly about this so I'll bow out. --Kvng (talk) 21:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There appears to be weak consensus to move the computer programming-related articles listed in proposal (2). (See my December 7 comment above.) --Pnm (talk) 15:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I moved the articles listed in (2) from (computer science) to (computer programming) as a more accurate parenthetical disambiguation based on weak consensus (Ruud: "Use (computer programming) (and perhaps also (software engineering)) for topics whose primary context is computer programming, programming language theory and software engineering."). To be conservative I excluded the contentious articles (including Action at a distance (computer science)). --Pnm (talk) 18:45, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Exceptions:

• Action at a distance (computer science): listed at WP:Requested moves.
• Cohesion (computer science): Scope may be slightly too broad for programming (software engineering). Did not move.
• Concern (computer science): Merge discussion open. Did not move.
• Marshalling (computer science): Scope is computing, not programming. Did not move.
• Reference (computer science): Scope is computing, not programming. Did not move.
• Side effect (computer science): Scope is computing, not programming. Did not move.
• Subclass (computer science) and Superclass (computer science): Had been merged. Did not move.

--Pnm (talk) 19:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Merging Category:Computers and Category:Computing

Please comment on the Cfm proposal at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_December_9#Category:Computers. Thanks! --Pnm (talk) 04:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

deletion of Category:Computing navbox templates

Category:Computing navbox templates has been requested to be deleted 64.229.101.17 (talk) 05:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

External links to implementations (cross-posted from Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science)

A number of users affiliated with Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam are removing external links to implementations of algorithms (including those implementations that are part of academically developed frameworks which have been described in academic literature). In my opinion this is setting a bad precedent and contrary to usual practice on articles related to this project. Could anyone interested in this issue, pro or contra, join the discussion at Talk:Particle swarm optimization#External Links to Source-Code. Cheers, —Ruud 15:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Set up automatic archiving

There are 64 threads on this page – it's getting very long. I set up this talk page to auto-archive after 30 days. It will also auto-index. --Pnm (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Restarting the computing collaboration

I'd like to restart the computing collaboration in January. We can choose one article and edit it for two weeks, then move on to another. I posted a list of nominations based on the former good articles and the popular stubs needing expansion. If there's enough interested in participating I'd like to get started on January 1.

I invite you to check out WP:COMP/C to comment on what's there, nominate more articles, and sign up to join in! --Pnm (talk) 15:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Bytes vs. octets

A discussion is happening at Talk:IPv6#bytes_instead_of_octets. I assume we've been down this road at least once before. Articles are not consistent in usage of these terms however. --Kvng (talk) 15:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Inherited importance assessments

Several templates like {{WikiProject Software}} and {{WikiProject Microsoft Windows}} automatically list the article in the Computing categories. They also provide a general computing importance assessment even if it's not explicitly provided. This inherited assessment is often misleading: something high-importance in Windows might be low-importance to computing. Similarly, something high-importance in computing might be only in a small way related to Software, Windows, etc.

I'd like to remove the automatic inheritance and change to this behavior: articles retain their Software or Windows importance, but are listed as Unknown-importance for Computing unless a general computing assessment is explicitly provided using computing-importance=.

This will help in three ways:

1. Encourage making a better importance assessment for general computing
2. Avoid unexpected changes to the Computing importance that result from changing e.g. the Software or Windows importance
3. Bring attention to the parameter for general computing importance, reducing the likelihood of articles accidently being listed in multiple Computing importance categories. (This causes false entries in the Computing reassessment log – see discussion at WP:COMP/A – and likely other problems as well.) --Pnm (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. —Ruud 02:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I support this. --Kvng (talk) 14:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Good article nomination

Fastra II was listed as a good article nominee. --Pnm (talk) 16:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"Binding" in computing

I suggested that Binding (computer science) might be better as a disambiguation page, and questioned the notability of binding in computing in general. I'd appreciate input on that article's talk page. --Pnm (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Help my Glary utilities page

I will need some help on my Glary Utilities article I will need a screenshot and an icon and some refrences Anish9807 (talk) 08:28, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

This Google News Archives search seems to have some results which are in reliable sources. I also encourage you to review the general notability guideline, which explains a standard for inclusion, and the guideline on citing sources. Good luck with the article! --Pnm (talk) 18:16, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Article alerts are back!

You can now view article alerts for all of computing at WP:COMP/AA, and see the transcluded list on the WP:COMP main page. --Pnm (talk) 05:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I discovered today WP:COMP/AA had only listed pages tagged directly using {{WikiProject Computing}}. I modified the templates so they'd populate Category:All Computing articles, too. After the next run, WP:COMP/AA should show the Software-, Comp Sec-, and Windows-tagged articles, too. --Pnm (talk) 21:33, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this Article Ready?

Is this Glary utilities article ready? Can someone please help it if not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anish9807 (talk • contribs) 05:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Ses7

My A1 speedy deletion tagging of this article was declined, so you're my next hope of determining what this (apparently machine-translated) article is about. Does anyone recognise the concept? The text references encryption, but I can't tell whether it is supposed to be a method, a tool, or something else. Googling the title has produced nothing apparently relevant. Gonzonoir (talk) 13:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Having had a quick look at it the next step is WP:AfD. Notability hasn't been established and it looks unlikely it ever will be. Dmcq (talk) 14:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

That would be my hunch; I just don't want to write an AfD rationale that boils down to "I don't understand what this article is on about" if that's a function of my ignorance rather than of the article's lack of clarity.

If anyone here is able to write (at least) a one-sentence lead explaining what this subject is, we can at least use that to check for notability and sources more effectively than is possible from the title alone. Gonzonoir (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Translation says "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing", which various discussions on the village pump confirms. The onus is on someone to establish it is worth keeping if they want it, not on other editors to prove it should be removed. Dmcq (talk) 14:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Well, consider this part of my compliance with WP:BEFORE. I'll go to AfD with the article if nothing we could use to salvage it is forthcoming soon. Gonzonoir (talk) 14:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Try a WP:Proposed deletion first. It's unlikely to be controversial, and it saves you and others a lot of work. --Pnm (talk) 15:10, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh yes sorry that's what I should have said. I normally do a prod instead of asking for a quick deletion but yes this one does look like quick deletion was appropriate. Dmcq (talk) 15:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Tablet personal computer requested move

As an FYI, there is a move discussion currently taking place relating to Tablet personal computer at Talk:Tablet_personal_computer#Requested_move. --Labattblueboy (talk) 18:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Punch cards

Punched card has been nominated for renaming, see Talk:punched card. 65.94.71.179 (talk) 05:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)