Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Forth

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[edit] Forth

• Previous nominations: 4 June 2006, 22 June 2006.

Self-nom. Previous nomination failed due to lack of inline references; if this is still a concern I would like some guidance on what needs to be referenced. --Ideogram 13:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comments:
  • Forth is a programming language, but why its main image is a picture of a person? It's misleading, though he is the inventor.

It is hard to find a picture related to a programming language, since it is not a physical object. --Ideogram 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• • External links section has too many items. It has unencyclopaedic statements: excellent, easy to learn, etc., that may be suspected as spam links. Use some of them as sources, or remove unecessary external links. I found one link to a webring (?). Please read again WP:EL, and WP is not a directory.

Fixed. --Ideogram 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Further copyediting is still needed. Perhaps, ask somebody who does not familiar with the subject. I randomly picked some sentences below:
    • Some Forth versions (especially early ones) compile threaded code, but many implementations today generate optimized machine code like other language compilers. → some? many? how many is exactly?

It is not clear to me that exact numbers here are available, desirable, or even possible. --Ideogram 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • Forth is so named because "[t]he file holding the interpreter was labeled FORTH, for 4th (next) generation software - but the operating system restricted file names to 5 characters." → I don't understand the meaning of brackets "[t]".

Brackets in a quote are a standard notation indicating a change to text from the original to make it fit the surrounding context. In this instance I would assume the "t" in the original quote is capitalized. --Ideogram 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • ...not a 4GL as we understand the term today. → we? who is we? Also avoid terms today, because it is inexact in the future.

Fixed. --Ideogram 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • Programming is done by extending the language with words (the term used for Forth subroutines), which become part of the language once defined. → Honestly, I don't understand at all, although I am a programmer.

I have rewritten this; please read it and see if it is clearer. --Ideogram 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • etc.
  • The article is still missing history of the subject.
  • The prose has too many specific jargons that non-specialist readers will get difficulty to learn the subject. Please take a look at other technical featured articles. There is none yet for programming language, but maybe you can compare the article with HTTP cookie.

— Indon (reply) — 16:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Object, for now. With regard to your question about inline citations: what I look for is enough citations that at any given moment the reader can figure out what references support the text they're currently reading. Based on the way the notes are distributed in this, I'm guessing many are "covering notes" that indicate a source for a paragraph or more of text--but it's hard to tell, as this isn't explicitly clear. Personally, I'm a big fan of the "unless otherwise noted, all information about X (or ...in section X) is drawn from Source, p. ##" type of notes--they can provide a way to pin down all the information, as it were, without cluttering the article up with repetitive citations; other people have other approaches to this. So try to have section or paragraph-level citations that cover just about everything; stuff that should be specifically cited includes more judgemental statements like "A well-designed Forth program reads like natural language, and implements not just a single solution, but also sets of tools to attack related problems."

I found this, by-and-large, to be pretty approachable for a computer-illiterate individual such as myself, so I don't think the amount of tech-speak is a concern. One thing I would like to see is a section, outside of the lead, on the creation and history of the language. The one other big concern I have is the copyright status of the image in the infobox; could you forward the release email to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org to allow for archiving and examination for appropriate licensing for Wikipedia (free license as opposed to permission only). So all in all, good work so far, but still a few things to address. --Robth^Talk 17:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)