User talk:Derek farn

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[edit] Compiler

Your prose is much better than what was there; however, there were many wikilinks to related subjects that are now absent. It is important to build the web, so I'm adding what I can back in. Cheers! --Mgreenbe 19:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah. To be honest, I didn't check that the links were in the article below. You're right, it is a fairly dense introduction. Welcome to Wikipedia (again — I see the welcoming committee already got you)!
This is a very strange way to talk, and, as you'll discover, it leads to many misunderstandings. While this won't help too much, it's best to sign your posts with ~~~~; this helps people respond and puts a timestamp on what you wrote. If you use popups, you'll even get a hover-menu with a link straight to the talk page. I can't recommend it enough. --Mgreenbe 02:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compiler entry and redirection from Compile

I'm the guy that added the disambiguation about the COMPILE Japanese videogame company. The problem is that Compile redirects to Compiler so I thinked to add the disambiguation link on the last one. You edited it so maybe I did something wrong, so probably is better doing in the Fenix article way. Please give me your opinion about this, I like many games from this death videogame development company. Timofonic 09:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for filling me in on the details. It seems to me that 'compile' should not directly rediect to compiler. I can think of several ways in which this term can be used and I think this problem is likely to occur again with one of these other uses. I think the solution is to change the compile page to be a list of redirects to pages with which it could be associated. It soulds like you are the one with the enthusiasm :-) Derek farn 20:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
No problem. About the solution of doing it with a list, that's OK. I can do Compile in the Fenix way, I'll try now. Timofonic 09:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Done. Look at Compile ;) Timofonic 09:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Programming language

I tried to bring the discussion at programming language talk page back to the topic of rewriting the introduction to something more accessible. I added the new section to the article so people could extended the POV they were advocating there instead of at the talk page. Calling it a rewrite, you seem to have decided to revert my work and instead push your own POV. Please see Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial. --TuukkaH 16:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Type safety

I never found:

unsigned x = -1;

usefull. In fact I once spend 2 days hunting down a:

signed* x;
unsigned* y;
y=x

Of corse x and y where defined in 2 different files and there was a function call in the middle (from a third file).

Your example is not conforming C (see assignment constraints, also pointer conversion wording). There have been, and still are, plenty of C compilers that don't implement all of the requirements contained in the C Standard. Derek farn 20:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Could well be. Neither the IBM nor the MS compiler I have used (for many years) are very true to the standart. And on both cases I could only switch on warning level 4 after the system and 3rd party library includes. --Krischik T 11:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Over the years (I did lots of C/c++ work) I have come to belive that the implicid conversions beween numeric types are far more harmfull then the the cast operations themself. It take control away from me because I want to decide when when to convert.

Implicit conversions have costs and benefits. People tend to concentrate on the costs. I don't have the data that would allow a detailed cost/benefit analysis to be performed. Derek farn 20:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

--Krischik T 18:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] quite wrong about me, and rather rude IMHO

The comment on my user page, about use of humor, is all about discussions. That is, talk pages. I didn't think anybody would believe the comment might apply to articles. I wonder how accidental the misinterpretation was, given that you edited my user page to distort my message. Go edit Jimbo's user page if you like; he has given approval to do so.

Long before I spotted the "bondage language" mention on the Pascal_and_C article, I had heard the term. I've known of it for years. I may have first heard it over a decade ago. Well of course it is appropriate to link the term to something. A category seemed more appropriate than an article.

Read the jargon file entry for bondage-and-discipline language. The jargon file is a well-accepted reference.

AlbertCahalan 06:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I do indeed believe the term is in actual use. Even if it does originate as something Eric Raymond added to the Jargon File, that in itself is influential enough to put the term into common use. I use many of the terms found in the Jargon File. Anyway, thanks for the apology; not many people would bother. AlbertCahalan 03:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operators in other languages

Just wanted to say, I just removed this sentance from the operators in C/C++ article.

Those operators that are in C are also in Java, Perl, C#, and PHP with the same precedence, associativity, and semantics.

I know that this is not true, as for example I'm almost certain comma operator is not in C# or Java. Feel free to pop over to the talk page if you like about how this should be corrected / expanded. Mrjeff 14:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Programming language 2

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. - CobaltBlueTony 23:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I know you don't want to talk to me, but I'm not about to simply "go away" so it would be better for all of us if we can reach some kind of understanding.

Clearly you know more than me, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to edit or question your opinion until I've read everything you tell me to read. Wikipedia doesn't work that way. If you have some material we disagree on, you can't just have your way by asserting that I don't know what I'm talking about; you have to prove it by citing sources. And it's not my job to find your sources for you. If you can cite the sources, I can easily see that you are correct and believe me I will drop all my objections. But you don't seem willing to do that, because you know you are right and I am wrong. But how is a naive reader to know that? That's why citing sources is so important and why we will never get FA status without it. I am pushing you to make the article better, because the questions I ask are the same ones that a naive reader will ask.

Just because I don't know as much as you doesn't mean I can't be helpful and do good work. And it certainly doesn't mean I have no right to be here. You can't avoid me, you can't go around me, you have to deal with me. Ideogram 07:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Idiogram, Wikipedia is not a chat room, a bulletin board, or a way to get a free education. The Programming language talk:programming language page contains many discussions between you and a small group of other people. The format and tone is similar to what might occur in a chat room or bulletin board. The volume of discussion is such that two archive pages have been created over a very short period of time, after several years of havinbg a single page. You clearly don't know much about programming languages and want to learn more. This is fine, but Wikipedia is not the place to do it. You are making edits that are technically wrong, you don't like terms that are in general use (eg, source code vs. program text) and make edits that reflect your preferences rather than the general usage, then you throw tantrums when you are corrected.
Yes, I am doing my best to ignore you. Please go and read some books and learn something about a subject before you start editing Wikipedia articles. A short list of books I have found useful: "Programming language pragmatics" by Scott, "Code complete" by McConnell (first edition, the second went downhill), "Modern compiler design" by Grune et al, "Computer architecture a quantitative approach" by Hennessy et al. Derek farn 10:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
There is no way you can ignore me or make me go away. If you continue trying to force edits without discussing my concerns I can and will use all the methods of dispute resolution up to and including getting you banned. You didn't even know what 3RR was, I suggest you read all of Wikipedia's policies before you tell me what Wikipedia is not or whether I'm allowed to edit.
And BTW I already own and have read half the books you suggested. Ideogram 10:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
(Please try to keep discussion threaded on this page. I have watchlisted you.) Ideogram 11:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ada as general-purpose language

In the Programming languages article, your edit of 2006-06-14 15:37:44 says "Ada was originally intended for general purpose use, today its niche is embedded systems". You are mistaken. Ada was designed on contract to DARPA specifically for embedded systems; the "Steelman" requirements document for it was quite clear. It was equally clearly not designed for business systems (like COBOL), scientific computation (like Fortran), string processing (like awk), or other applications. The Ada programming language article summarizes the situation clearly:

Ada was originally targeted at embedded and real-time systems. The Ada 95 revision, designed by S. Tucker Taft of Intermetrics between 1992 and 1995, improved support for systems, numerical, and financial programming.

I worked on the design of Ada at Intermetrics, and wrote a Ph.D. thesis on programming language design; I do know what I'm talking about. --Macrakis 20:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

So you worked on the CHILL compiler?! I was called in once by the CHILL group to interpret the denotational spec because a particular case wasn't clear... something to do with the state of variables on abnormal exit from a loop, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the point of the passage was that Ada 83 was not designed as a "general-purpose programming language". Even with the Ada 95 changes, it simply "improved support" for other areas. I'm not sure anyone talks about "general-purpose programming languages" any more, anyway. When PL/I was defined to unify commercial and scientific programming, scientific languages like Fortran didn't have records, and commercial programming languages didn't have floating-point. Nowadays, no one (except I guess COBOL) has BCD arithmetic anymore.... --Macrakis 20:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] _Bool

I did not delete your contribution, I just put most of it under a new heading, like this:

[edit] Language versions

Neither K&R C nor the first ISO Standard had a specific boolean type. The 1999 revision of the C Standard introduced the type _Bool. Practically all versions of C have supported binary valued relational operators however.

So you did. My fault for missing it. Derek farn 00:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The reason I moved it down were that "excess" (historical) detail could distract from the basic simple principles i was trying to pinpoint (and that you erased some of it).

Is it that excessive? Perhaps wording of the form "Prior to the 1999 revision of the C Standard ..."? The important distinction is between 0/1 and 0/non-zero, but this is a bit hard to get across in this kind of broad brush overview. Derek farn 00:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not use C much anymore (I did for 10 years), but my impression (without having read the formal C99 standard yet) is that _Bool is something of a "fix" (demanding #includes and all), and that C99 is still, in essence, the same "int-centered" language it always been (no offense whatsoever). See, for instance: http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/digitalmars-d-announce/2006-February/000127.html

_Bool is a keyword, see here. You are thinking of the bool macro defined in <stdbool>. Yes, C99 is still integer oriented. Derek farn 00:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I was thinking of true and false which could well be keywords IMHO. /HenkeB 01:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I therefore feel it's very reasonable to mention _Bool a little later. If you know important details I've missed, please add them to the article (under the new heading perhaps).

I view the article is being about C as it is today, not how it was in the past. Derek farn 00:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it could well cover C and Pascal during their entire life span (up till today, that is), with special emphasis on what the inventors (Dennis Richie / Niclaus Wirth) intended, what features are commonly (mis)used and (dis)liked by programmers, and maybe not so much on formal standards ;) /HenkeB 01:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
That is a bit of a tall order. Given space and time constraints the most we can do is pick some point in time. I think the best time to pick is the present day, with some historical context. Derek farn 23:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I was not planning to do it all by myself... however, to single out only present day standards when comparing languages as old as Pascal (~1969) and C (~1972) does not make much sense, as probably 90%, or more, of existing code (and involved programmers) have not had access to the latest additions (_Bool for instance) and many do not use them anyway. But I agree that all standards should be mentioned. (BTW we should really have had this conversation under the actual article instead, my fault)

Best regards /HenkeB 21:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could accept a phrasing like?
C did not have a specific boolean type until the C99 standard, and, as tests are (conceptually) performed by zero-checks, false is always represented by zero, while true may be representated by any other value.
How about: C did not support a built-in boolean type until the C99 Standard. For compatibility with existing practice false is represented by zero, while true is represented by any non-zero value. Derek farn 23:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Perfect under Language versions (or a similary named heading).
along with the sub-paragraph "Language versions", shown above.
Perhaps "Language versions" could be used consistently through the article, for standards and (more or less) de-facto standard extensions.
"Language versions" can mean several things, ie particular vendor implementations, or different language specifications. Derek farn 23:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I know, that's a good thing, it covers standards, vendor versions, and extensions under one roof.
What do you say?
BTW if you know details about how _Bool typed variables (are supposed to) react on ++/--, +=/-= etc in various cases, please fill me in!
Best regards /HenkeB 01:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
You can search on boolean types here. Derek farn 23:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Not very informative, if I manage to get some time off, I will visit my favourite bookstore tomorrow ;)
Despite our minor attitude differences, I belive we could cooperate well, Cheers /HenkeB 00:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate revert

You reverted my edit in compiler with the comment:

rv: Cross compiling and P-code are different concepts)

Since my edit didn't imply that they were the same thing, and especially since the concept wasn't otherwise mentioned in the article, your reversion was inappropriate.

Please be more careful in future.WolfKeeper 21:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

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