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)

Wolfkeeper, I reverted your edit because what you said was technically incorrect (and a poor edit to boot). I have just removed your latest changes. Read the article and learn why what you said was incorrect. Derek farn 15:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh how could I be so stupid! Quote: "Compilers are classified as either native (or hosted) compilers or cross compilers." Right, good, either or- two types! But then: "Interpreters and Virtual machine (VM) compilers are not usually classified as either native or cross compilers". Yeah, that makes sense. There's only two types. Oh, and there's a third type! But there's only two types really! Your reversions are inappropriate.WolfKeeper 20:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] term software anomaly

Hello Derek farn, I saw your comments, when you reverted my edits. My intention is not to spam or to redefine a common term. I want to explain why this is, please see discussion page. --Erkan Yilmaz 03:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello Derek farn, I have added some examples also. Just to be clear, this is just my explanation of the intention for this page. I would like to see some discussion, I hope we do not do edit wars or suchalike. So, if you add your views, we/I can come to a solution, since Wikipedia is for discussing, arguing, so the quality of the articles increase. Good night. --Erkan Yilmaz 03:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, to show you that my intentions are sincere, here some of my activities (this is ONLY in the wiki community):
  • identifying and how to improve white box articles in wiki [1]
  • Wikiversity courses in German and English on software testing
  • Please also consider my reviews on articles on testing in English and German Wikipedia
  • bug reported in MediaZilla: [2]
--Erkan Yilmaz 04:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Erkan Yilmaz I can see from what you have said and done that your intentions are good. However, I think your enthusiasm and good intentions are leading you to spread your time too thinly on many topics. It takes time to write a good article and adding categories to existing pages needs a little reflection. You have recently joined Wikipedia and have made many edits. Can I suggest that after a major edit that you allow a day or so to let things settle (ok, perhaps less on very active pages) and others involved in an article to read it and perhaps respond. Good luck with your anomaly article (I suspect it might merge with software bug on day soon). Derek farn 11:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello Derek farn,
thank you for the nice words, keeps me motivated :-)
I like your proposal, that after a major edit there should be a day or so to let things settle. What can I say, I was too enthusiastic. I will wait then a little more.
And about the merge: well, if it comes, it comes :-) and then of course because it is to the general benefit.
Thank you again for your time and help. Because after your inputs, I added more to the article itself. So your feedback helped the article. Of course there can be optimized the quality more (as with everything).
--Erkan Yilmaz 12:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Programming style

Hello Derek farn, I responded to your answer. Please do not see it that I blame you or so. It was just to get also the group's view. I hope everything fine now? As you can see, your feedback helped me again :-) ----Erkan Yilmaz (evaluate me!, discussion) 18:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment article

Hi,

I'm replying here to your remark on my talk page. I'm not sure whether you just saw that I moved the article or were following the discussion in one of the Manual of Style talk pages; anyway my point was a bit more articulated: the article already covered comments in non-programming languages (e.g. XML), so I renamed it to "comment (computer language)" which is more general than "comment (programming language)". That I think is uncontroversial. But there's more: you may find comments in configuration files and other files which are not for a language processor proper, just for a program which parses them according to a given (usually primitive) syntax. After some discussions with the guys who maintain the Manual of Style we agreed that, for simplicity's sake, the best solution was probably just naming the article "comment (computing)" as that is enough for disambiguation; it is a bit more general than needed but it's simple. That's how the article is named now. Let me know if you have objections or further comments about it. And Merry Christmas! :-) —Gennaro Prota•Talk 23:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Sigh, just saw your revert. Well, at least you could have checked the differences. I think anyone restoring something like this: "Some people believe that comments are unnecessary because code should be written in a way that makes it self explanatory (it is not uncommon to encounter source code that contains no comments); other people believe that source code should be extensively commented (it is not uncommon for over 50% of the non-whitespace characters in source code to be contained within comments)" deserves what he has restored. —Gennaro Prota•Talk 23:11, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment disambiguation page

Hi, you recently reverted my edit on the comment disambiguation page. I had inserted the following link, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Invisible_comments so that it will be easier to new user, like me to figure out how to leave comments for other while editing an article. Your reason for the revert,

"rv: Wikipedia usage is discussed in bullet points. Not important enough to warrant being in introduction"

was not clear to me. The page has no such similar link. There is a link to Wiktionary article on the page, which gives the dictionary definition of the word comment. The link I had inserted was related to editing Wikipedia articles.

Can you please clarify your reason for the revert ? Thank you. P.S. You can post your reply on your talk page. myth 04:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deadlocked at Computer Program

Are you OK with me going through the dispute resolution process regarding our deadlock at computer program? Do you want to talk about it privately? I'll give you my phone number or email address. Timhowardriley 23:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure we have a disagreement worth troubling the Wikipedia dispute resolution service over. I am happy to exchange emails (I think there is a Wikipedia mechanism to send me a private email containing your email and I can respond with mine; I think it's a tick box in user configuration to enable this option for people to send you private email). Only one other person has chimed in on the discussion.
My email address is on my user page. Email your phone number and a good time to call and we can talk privately about this for a few minutes. Timhowardriley 16:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
While my comments have at times been blunt, your responses have been considered and reasonable ones. Sorry to repeat some of them, but the problem is one of the expertise needed to write a better introduction. I would find it hard to write a better introduction and you are finding it hard to write a better one. Why not let it go and move onto working on other articles? Derek farn 09:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Software testing

Hello Derek farn, if you check the category:Software testing you will find that it is included in category:Software engineering, which is normally considered a tree. I have also some difficulties in understanding why software testing should be listed under category:skills. Inwind 12:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you have made these comments to me, other than that I was the last person to edit the article. I was not responsible for listing it under category:skills. Software testing is a skill. I have no firm beliefs about it being list as a category or not. The Wikipedia article creating classifications does say that they should not be considered to be a tree. I don't see why software engineering should be a special case. Derek farn 13:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Precise definitions needed

In answer to your question posted on my talk page:

Please point me at the precise definitions of Perl and PHP. There are plenty of imprecise ones around. Talking of precise definitions, what is the precise C or C++ definition of the expression (i=i++) (the behavior is specified to be undefined by the language standards, is undefined an acceptable answer for a language to be precisely defined?) Derek farn 21:25, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The precise definition of a PHP implementation is at [[3]].
My point is, is that this is not a precise definition. I know several people who have tried to create implementation from it and the document is silent on many issues. Derek farn 01:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
The precise definition of a Perl implementation is at [[4]]. The precise definition of a C++ implementation is at [[5]].
The Standard for C++ can be found at [6]. And no it is not a precise definition. Derek farn 01:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
A precisely-defined computer language is not the same thing as a generic definition for all implementations of that language. As you alluded to, the expression (i=i++) has a specific definition for each implementation of the language.
No (i=i++) can have a different definition every time a compiler encounters it in the source. It is undefined behavior and an implementation can do what ever it likes. Implementation defined behavior varies between compilers and there are restrictions on what the set of possible behaviors. Derek farn 01:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
It is undefined behavior and an implementation can do what ever it likes. EXACTLY!!! What ever the implementation likes to do at the point it is encountered is the precisely defined behavior for that implementation. Thank you for making my point. SqlPac 02:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Therefore, no matter how many times I use (i=i++) in Visual C++ 7.1, I can expect a precisely defined set of rules to kick in, which will operate in exactly the same way every single time. No matter how many times I use (i=i++) in Turbo C++, I can expect a precisely defined set of rules to kick in, which will operate in exactly the same way every single time. Further, the fact that you used the ++ operator indicates that it is a precisely-defined operator. The fact that you used the = operator indicates that it is precisely-defined. The parentheses appear to be part of the language as well, and we could probably locate where they are defined in the language as well.
You have shown no undefined behavior; only behavior that is implementation-defined. Further, even if a specific implementation of C++ threw a compile-time exception when it encountered (i=i++), it is part of the precise definition.
You could not effectively program in a computer language that was not precisely defined. A computer language that was not precisely defined would have no way to know what your intent was; it therefore could not carry out your instructions.
Finally, Dr. Knuth's TAOCP has been the subject of nearly 40 years of intensive peer review and academic scrutiny. The fact that TAOCP has been named one of the 12 greatest scientific monographs of the past 100 years aside, if you want to challenge his definition of computer program, I'd recommend brining some heavier firepower than not all implementations of a specific language follow the ANSI standard; therefore none of them are precisely defined by anyone.
TAOCP is a great work of applied mathematics. However, Knuth's definition is specific to his interests. He is also using terms in a very specific way which is different from might be regarded 'common' usage in computing (eg, the definition of common usage for the term method now has a strong OO flavor to it which did not exist 15 years ago). Derek farn 01:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
So what should we rename Scientific method to, so as not to confuse people with this OO flavor? I don't really buy that argument. SqlPac 02:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Hope that helps. SqlPac 23:24, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
BTW, Derek farn, just to get past this hurdle so we can stop arguing style and improve the actual substance of the article, and to avoid an edit war, I would be willing to post an RfC to the Computer Science WikiProject and abide by a consensus reached there as to the validity of Knuth's definition. Just let me know if that would be acceptable to you. SqlPac 23:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I think Knuth's definition is valid in the domain in which he works. I think it is poorly worded in the sense of how people outside Knuth's mathematical domain will interpret it. Derek farn 01:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I've posted responses to the Computer program talk page (at least I think that was where). I've posted an RfC at [7] to see if Knuth's definition can withstand the "dynamic creation of reality through consensus." I think the issues with how people "outside Knuth's mathematical domain" will interpret it is well-covered by the laymen's version which is simple in language, slightly incorrect, and given top billing on the page (it is the very first sentence). SqlPac 02:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Compiler

Hi, Derek.
I don't edit other people's comments on talk pages lightly. 202.82.33.202, however, is indefinitely blocked user Spinoza1111, who is evading his block time and time again by continuing to edit as an anon user (commonly displaying exactly the behavior he was blocked for). Please don't be so gracious to this user in the future (who isn't even allowed to edit).--Atlan (talk) 14:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial tool dealing with very specialist usage of goto

> Commercial tool dealing with very specialist usage of goto.

I think it is important that people know that such a tool exists. And it is relevant to goto article concerning Java. If not here, then where do you think it fits? Canwilf

Wikipedia has rules dealing with links that are essentially advertising (even to books dealing with the subject of the article, unless the books are well known and the link has not been created by the author). Links that are essentially advertising are not allowed in any article. A while back an article containing very a useful list of links to all known static analysis tools was deleted because it contained too much commercial information :-(. Perhaps if you write a technical article (that happens to mention the tool) and link to it then reviewers will let it through. Derek farn 14:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logic tag

The bot owner is not to blame for the categories tagged. The bot is tagging articles by the categories considered at WikiProject Logic. Some articles may not be included. In the interest of getting most of the appropriate ones, the sweep may be a little over inclusive. Besides, some of these articles could benefit from the attention of the project. I think the bot owner's page is a bad place for that whole spam thing. Be well,Gregbard 09:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Derek - thanks for the note. I've asked that the Category:Formal languages be reviewed for any misplaced {{Logic2}} banners. Sorry for the over-tagging! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a discussion being publicized currently:
  • Discussion about the fact that the bot has stopped tagging articles due to complaints.
Gregbard 01:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stop it

Why is it every time that I attempt to reach some kind of compromise on Array you blindly revert to the last version that you edited? You're removing changes that have nothing at all to do with anything that you disagree with, like my changes to out-of-bound indexing and MisterSheik's changes to assocative arrays. You're reverting changes of terminology made not in order to promote a point of view but in order to reduce confusion for reasons I clearly stated that you have not contested. Blind reverts say that you're asserting ownership of the article and you're unwilling to compromise and don't care what anyone has to say. You have completely ignored my detailed and friendly attempt to raise discussion on the talk page. This is extremely rude and distressing behavior and I hope you will consider discussing the issues. Dcoetzee 18:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I've now reworded the paragraph in the intro to give equal weight to static and dynamic arrays. If you wish to further contest this rewording please do so on the talk page so that we can come to a consensus, and please stop reverting unrelated changes. Thank you. Dcoetzee 18:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Huh? Why the revert?

At [8]. I don't really care about the recent addition about denotational semantics and all that, but if it's going to be there, it should flow better with the rest of the (short) section. Under my edit, it reads better; under your revert (and hence the original slightly sloppy edit), it reads worse. Why would you revert to achieve something worse (when there doesn't seem to be any actual factual or content concern, just prosidy). LotLE×talk 23:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Apologies. I saw the edition without noticing that it was a cut and paste from further down. This subject is covered further down, so I have removed it completely (which is the edit I should have made in the first place). Derek farn 00:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's an "improper edit"?

What's an improper edit? If editors are adding value to articles with accredited, referenced sources, then at least justify your revert. Timhowardriley 21:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Point well taken

Regarding your edit here, I agree that an imperative computer program (loosely defined) is essentially an algorithm. Your point is well taken. Within the context of algorithms, could you produce a (loosely defined) definition of a declarative computer program? Timhowardriley 21:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Please stop the WP:OR speculation on Programming language

Some of the hypotheses you propose on why various measures of PL popularity are skewed are plausible. Others seem implausible even on their face. But what they all have in common is that they are 100% original research and speculation. You provide no citations whatsoever; and moreover, you have seriously violated 3RR in reverting to the same personal pontification. Don't do that! LotLE×talk 01:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rework black magic nonsense

I think a little more thought and consideration should have been applied before using the heading of "Rework black magic nonsense". See Wikipedia:WikiLove. Timhowardriley 15:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You are right about not being overly considerate, but I would not rate it as being overly inconsiderate. Perhaps I will guilty about it tomorrow, or perhaps when I stop caring I will be overly considerate. Derek farn 16:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
You seem to have abrasive remarks well justified. Timhowardriley 16:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Preserving Knuth's definition

I see that you are preserving Knuth's definition in the computer program article. I moved the proof -- that my translation of Knuth's definition is logically equivalent to Knuth's -- to its own heading in the talk section. I do, however, feel that your previous version of the sentences surrounding Knuth's definition was better than what now stands. Frankly, the current version is a runon sentence. Moreover, I feel that my version of the sentences surrounding Knuth's definition was the best so far. Timhowardriley 16:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hope you didn't mind

Re: Computer Program
I'm not as "fast" of an editor as others might be and prefer to think things out thoroughly before bothering to make an edit. I hope you didn't mind that I undid your revert, but you apparently weren't aware of the other changes to the article that had occurred in the interim of the version you chose. I don't happen to agree with the "two-level" approach, but don't really have anything better of my own. I can see where you're coming from in that regard, but am sure you see it as a work-around rather than a solution. I've been up to the attic (gah) today and hauled out a load of books. The best I've found so far is from "The Anatomy of Programming Languages" where on page 15 there is a definition of "program". The problem with that definition, though, even though it very much resembles what we have in place, is that the author, in context, specifically refers to her definition as defining "program" and not "computer program". Her perspective on the matter is that programming languages are not bound to computing whatsoever, and, humbly, I must agree. I've pored over at least a dozen of my old books now looking for a plain old everyday definition of computer program, even checking glossaries. It's been very entertaining, but fruitless. I have at least another dozen if not more that should have such a definition. Time will tell. Again, hope you understood the reason for my undo of your revert. Metrax 04:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Artificial language in programming language

Derek, I don't plan on making a big deal out of my request for citation. I'll remove it after a good discussion in the talk section, no matter the outcome. Timhowardriley 00:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war on computer program

The computer program article is going through the vetting process for good article status. See Wikipedia:Good article reassessment#Computer program. However, this edit generated negative comments from the good article cabal.

  • "The lead seems to have disappeared to almost nothing. I wonder if we're both looking at the same article? In any event, it's patently clear that the article is not stable, an automatic GA fail."
  • "Hmm, it seems you're right, but when I looked at it earlier today, it was at least several sentences long. Now, it is too short. I'll avoid making another decision until the editing stops mostly, but if the current lead is what the main author is shooting for, this article should never be a GA."

You recently made this substantial edit to the article. And you have a supporter:

  • "...while there is no edit war there is one editor who is obviously not happy about the article and about its scope ([9] and more recently [10]). I see no point to rush it to a GA status."

Well, I'm going on wikibreak to let you get the article to GA quality. I'll then renominate it for GA status again. If it fails again, I suggest we revert back to before I arrived and start over. Timhowardriley 17:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Computer program introduction as topic sentences

I overwrote much of your introduction of the computer program article. After going through the good article process, I learned that the introduction should be a summary of the entire article. So, I went through the article and copied the topic sentence of many of the paragraphs and pasted them to the introduction. I tried to order the sentences to create a logical flow. I know you wrote much of the original introduction, so I hope you don't mind too much the change. Timhowardriley (talk) 23:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Typed and untyped languages

I hope that your revert of my redirect means that you intend to do something constructive with this article soon, rather than leaving it in its current stubby state. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: "There is a lot more to decoding than parsing"

In computer program, I changed the term "decode" into "parse" because parse has a better wikilink than decode. Whereas decoding program statements has many steps in addition to parsing, parsing is the most time consuming. If you agree, I would ask that you to change "decode" back to "parse". Timhowardriley (talk) 20:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the most accurate term should be used. I don't understand why you would think that quality of wikilink matters in this case (it would if the two terms were very similar). As you point out there is a lot more to decoding than parsing and this 'lot more' is what the interpreter has to do. Perhaps the solution is to improve the wikilink for decode? Derek farn (talk) 23:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you are right about improving the decode article. Timhowardriley (talk) 23:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categories at Static code analysis

Hello, both categories (Category:Formal methods and Category:Computer programming tools) are a supercategory of Category:Static code analysis so in whatever way the user navigates through the categories and arrives at either of these supercats, the subcat Category:Static code analysis is visible. The same holds for navigating away from the article (the user notices the supercats of Category:Static code analysis and can navigate from there). I don't think the argument that the categories are not a tree applies here because in this case, there's a direct supercat/subcat relation and there's no need to overcategorize articles when the article has a category that provides the same navigation. - Simeon87 (talk) 23:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Simeon87, what you are saying is true. However, Wikipedia categories are not considered to have a tree structure, see [11]. I have come to seethe advantage of this principle. It means that people can quickly find articles in what might be considered closely related categories. I know that I rarely navigate around the category structure. Derek farn (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of Mumeishi Kendo Club

A tag has been placed on Mumeishi Kendo Club requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. BigDunc (talk) 22:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mumeishi Kendo Club

I have deleted this page under A7 — an article about a company that did not assert importance. If you would like, I will restore this article in a subpage of yours so that you may work on it. If you would like to do so, please make note on my talk page or here. Thanks. seresin | wasn't he just...? 00:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Company, club, biography, website etc. all fall under A7. I misspoke and said company. Hosting the largest competition in a sect of martial arts in one nation is not an assertion of notability; at any rate it wasn't verified. seresin | wasn't he just...? 04:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Remove "used to produce them"

I noticed that you made an edit to Computer Program without commenting on this talk. I'm assuming that you agree with my logic and it's OK with you that I make the suggested edit. Timhowardriley (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The term modern suggests that what is being discussed does not apply to non-modern, which in this case is not true. Also some modern OSs are single tasking (coffee machines come to mind). Derek farn (talk) 11:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the topic is referring to this revert of yours, not single task operating systems. Your explanation of the revert was, "POintless grammar rule ruins ease of understanding." As I explained as an argument for the removal of "used to produce them", paradigms do not produce computer programs, people do. Please comment in the talk if you plan to again revert my edit. Timhowardriley (talk) 17:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] C (programming language) category

You wrote:[12]

rv: Wikipedia categories are not tree structured

The category in question, Category:Programming languages, has a banner at the top:

This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large.
It should list very few, if any, article pages directly and should mainly contain subcategories.
Articles in this category should be moved to subcategories when appropriate.

I was following its instructions in moving C out of the main category, since it's already been added to appropriate subcategories.

If this seems reasonable, perhaps you'll self-revert this edit. If it doesn't seem reasonable to you, you should either discuss this line on the category's Talk page (or at an appropriate WikiProject) or WP:BOLDly change the line yourself. Personally, I find this instruction useful since it makes browsing easier: there are simply so many programming languages that putting them all into a supercategory seems counterproductive (and it hides the alphabetically-later subcategories, not just pages). But you may have your own reasons here.

As a WP:0RR devotee, I'll leave your edit in place.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I see you did the same at BlooP and FlooP, and my comments apply equally here. Further, in that case, I wonder if you think that the page should receive also Category:Fictional programming languages as it is similar to Blub (programming). Cheers! CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

CRGreathouse, Thanks for pointing out the banner in the Category:Programming languages page. It was not there last time I looked (which may have been a while ago). This request does appear to be counter to what is said in Wikipedia:Categorization. On the other hand there are several thousand languages (excluding possible paper ones). I would prefer that any language could appear in the programming language category, but perhaps there are lots of people who disagree. Sounds like there ought to be some general discussion on this issue (none appears in the talk page of the category). If you agree with the banner perhaps you could kick off a discussion topic. Derek farn (talk) 02:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
What is a fictional programming language? One that does not have any implementations? I bet there are implementations of BlooP and FlooP. A Google search did not find one for the Hofstadter language, but it did find this [13]. Derek farn (talk) 02:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the banner disagrees with WP:CAT, which says, "Usually, articles should not be in both a category and its subcategory" although it allows for occasional placing of nested categories. This kind of banner isn't unique to this category, either: I've seen it on several other large categories.
In any case, I think we can agree that the main problem is that many programming languages don't have appropriate tags -- they're concurrent programming languages, but their only cat tag is Category: Programming languages. Once the appropriate tags are added, it's a relatively easy process to remove the redundant ones if it's decided to be useful. (I think removing redundant categories is helpful in navigation, but I can imagine the reverse being argued.)
CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] source code

Hey, I noticed that you reverted my edit to source code. I'm going to revert it to my version (I do think it's better) but I'd like to know which parts of my edit you found unclear and inaccurate. I'll start a section on the talk page and give some reasons for my changes. –MT 05:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] threaded code

Thank you for improving Wikipedia.

Your recent edit[14] to threaded code, at first glance, appears to be a good application of Refactor By Condensing Question Answer Pair.

Alas, I reverted that edit. See Talk:Threaded code#some_redundancies_cannot_be_eliminated_by_subroutines for details. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 14:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)