Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Collection Oriented Programming

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Mailer Diablo 04:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collection Oriented Programming

Protologism, original research. 27 unique Google hits, including author's home page and some WP mirrors. Article author has this to say on his personal page: "Thus, I am here trying to sell the dream and vision of perhaps what should be called 'collection-oriented-programming.' I found it a more powerful metaphore than anything else on the market, and I hope you will too." Craig Stuntz 12:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This seems more a complaint about the colloquial nature of blogs than the topic at hand. If somebody says in a blog, "Lisp is fricken cool and runs circles around other languages!", that is NOT a reason to delete Lisp topics. The above cited page is not even directly linked to by "collection oriented programming", and thus appears more of a complaint about the author's personal blog or blog style than of the wikipedia topic content itself.

If you want to argue that the name is not in common-enough usage to justify an article, that is another matter. As the case is stated above, I question the objectivity of the complaint.

Protologism complaints may not apply to computer-related topics because print publications are not where ideas are formed and shaped about software anymore. The web has largely replaced formal software journals, for good or bad.

"Collection oriented programming" is simply a name that encompasses a wide variety of tools and languages. It was not coined by the author of the above page. --Tablizer (7/20/2006)

That the term is "not common enough usage to justify an article" is precisely the issue I stated above. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear, but read the first sentence. I'm not sure why you think I have an issue with colloquial language outside of Wikipedia since I didn't write that, and, like you, I don't think it's a reason to delete. I brought up the page I linked because it's one of the few places which use the term at all and it explicitly says it's a protologism. I'll restate what I wrote above in more verbose terms in case my wording was confusing:

• There are only 27 unique Google hits for the term.
• One of them states that it is not an established methodology or term.
• Some of the hits are more or less abandoned pages. For example, this page was imported from another Wiki, and it's been removed from the original source.
• Some of the hits (like this one or this)use it in a very generic, descriptive sense rather than as the name of a methodology.
• The article itself gives no citations for the term.
• The document which appears to be the most legitimate potential citation, a paper by James Brakefield, appears to be unreferenced by anyone other than the author. I searched the ACM's guide to computing literature, a comprehensive index of nearly all computing research ever published, and found only one citation, by Brakefield.
• Note that there is no exception to the avoid neologisms guideline for computer-related topics. The issue of usage of a term on the web vs. in print is a red herring here since this phrase isn't frequently used in either place.

In short, I see no reason to believe that this is a notable or verifiable methodology, and quite a few reasons to believe that it is not. --Craig Stuntz 13:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete on grounds of notability and original research unless references are provided. Heck, I myself could cook up a few "programming metholodogies" if I tried.... --SJK 11:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I deny originating the term. How about a compromise: a stub at the very top that questions the commonality of the term rather than outright deletion. It can serve as topic to tie together languages and tools with similar features. There is no alternative currently that I can find to describe the similarities of focusing on operations that operate on entire collections/data-structures. It is a concept found in linear algebra ("matrix math"), but arrays are not the only collections that can be treated this way. -Tablizer

Subjects which are not notable, verifiable, and cited do not belong on Wikipedia at all. It is original research regardless of whether you personally created the term (and please note that nobody here ever asserted you did). If you don't understand why this is true, read the definition of "original research" on the page I just linked. There is no "question" regarding the commonality of the term. It is almost totally unused in the field of computing. A search of 750000+ citations from 3000+ publishers yields two results, one of which is the Brakefield citation I discussed above, and the second of which describes an algorithm rather than something like what is in the article.

Note that even if this article wasn't OR — and I assert that it is, per the Wikipedia definition — it would still be inappropriate since it's an un-cited, un-verifiable protologism.

There are a number of areas of research, in programming and other fields, where there is no good alternative to existing technologies which solves a certain problem, or nothing published on a certain area of the field. That's fine — it's a great area in which to do research. But Wikipedia is not the place to publish it.

In closing I should add that I do welcome your contributions on established, verifiable methodologies such as relational databases, so please don't take this AfD personally. This is not a discussion of the merit of what you term "collection oriented programming," only its suitability for Wikipedia. --Craig Stuntz 19:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

 AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Mailer Diablo 22:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as non-notable neologism. Dark Shikari 01:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as non-notable neologism and/or original research. --Xrblsnggt 02:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom.--Peta 03:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.