Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether Richard's Controller is notable enough for an own article. I would appreciate an expert opinion. For details, see the article's talk page. If you can spare some time, please add your comments there. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 14:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Our article on parallel computing has some severe deficiencies. I want to do a total rewrite and try to get it up to FA status. Right now, I'm in the planning stage. I'd appreciate all the help I can get, at User:Raul654/PC Raul654 04:23, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Note - the rewrite is going well. Help from others would be welcome. Raul654 05:52, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Note: The more I do this, the more I realize the parallel computing is basically unsalvageable. I've only managed to re-use 2 paragraphs. Beyond that, this is a total rewrite. While I'm at it, I'm merging Distributed computing and Concurrent computing into that article, because they are essentially synonymous. When I'm finished, I'm going to redirect them. Raul654 03:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Note: Parallel computing and concurrent computing are not synonymous. Or, to be more precise, not everyone treats them synonymously (although some people do seem to do so). Parallelism involves simultaneous execution on multiple processors (or cores). Concurrency involves computations that are not strictly sequential (i.e. there is more than flow of control), but are not necessarily executed in parallel (they may be executed via instruction interleaving on a single processor). There are a number of programming languages that support concurrency (e.g. via threads) but not parallelism. On the flip side, implementing parallelism pretty much requires the capability to define concurrent computations. See here for a brief discussion of the difference. For a non-blog reference, Van Roy & Haridi's Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming says (p. 322): "Concurrency is a language concept that expresses logically independent computations. Parallelism is an implementation concept that expresses activities that happen simultaneously." --Allan McInnes (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

Adapt to adapt (via WP:PROD on 2 November 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

• List of basic computer science topics
• List of basic information technology topics
• List of basic computer programming topics

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been noticing lots of biographies of computer scientists and engineers that lack pictures:

• Gene Amdahl
• Thomas Sterling (computing)
• Donald Becker
• Michael J. Flynn
• Jack Dongarra
• John L. Hennessy
• David A. Patterson
• Ivan Sutherland
• Garth A. Gibson
• Robert Tomasulo

Jack Dongarra is visiting my group in early 2008, so I can get a picture of him then. I tried locating one for Gene Amdahl, but he's proving *extremely* difficult to track down. I'll see about contacting Thomas Sterling and getting a picture. Raul654 04:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Added one. -Susanlesch 05:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, I'd be *VERY* grateful if someone could find me a free picture of a NVIDIA Tesla card for the parallel computing rewrite I'm doing. Raul654 06:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed we have an article on Garth A. Gibson. I spent hours at the Panasis booth at last year's Supercomputing conference. I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of him. Raul654 16:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to Supercomputing this year, but about a half-dozen other people from my research group are. I gave them the above list and asked them to photograph as many as possible. Also, Jack Dongarra is coming to visit my research group right after thanksgiving, so if he isn't photographed at SC07, I'll get a pic of him then. Raul654 22:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

One down. Raul654 19:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I got a picture of him, but then I found out that Burton J. Smith didn't have an article! I've written a stub - expansion is welcome. Raul654 (talk) 00:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Strike another one off the list. Raul654 (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I just emailed Patterson asking if he has a picture to use that can be licensed freely. Raul654 (talk) 17:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Patterson down. One of my research group colleagues told me he has a picture of Thomas Sterling taken at SC07. I'm following up on this. I'm also considering emailing John Hennessey. Raul654 (talk) 17:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

PS - this thread is starting to feel very lonely. Raul654 (talk) 17:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The picture of Thomas Sterling turned out to be a dud (it was actually another one of Burton Smith). However, it's now looking entirely possible that I'll be interning with Dr. Smith over the summer. Raul654 (talk) 09:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

user:Pkivolowitz recently uploaded a picture of Gene Amdahl. Raul654 (talk) 18:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I am moving this to the TODO list. Ham Pastrami (talk) 18:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

Bag of words model (via WP:PROD on 8 November 2007) Kept

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• I have no idea what the bag-of-words model has to do with computer vision, but I replaced it with a fuller article about its use in natural language processing. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 00:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Should transexuals biographies be placed in this category or should a new category "Transexual computer scientist" or just none at all? So far I found Lynn Conway and Sophie Wilson articles under female computer scientist. I don't think transexual (male->female) blah are women more like Male since they would have male like brain. - 6etonyourfeet ^(talk?) 13:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

In some jurisdictions, transsexuals can legally change their sex on their birth certificates. More importantly, male-to-female transsexuals themselves and most people in society would refer to them as female - especially those who didn't know about the operation (assuming there was an operation). As for male-like brains, this is disputable: many of them would say "I have a female-like brain, that's why I chose to have a sex change"; furthermore, some non-transsexual women (e.g. some women who have Asperger's Syndrome) arguably have personality characteristics more stereotypically associated with men. So I think it's clear that Wikipedia should categorise m-2-f transsexuals as female. Creating a subcategory "Transsexual women computer scientists" would be possible, but it would be excessive categorisation, I think. The general issue of categorising biographies of transsexuals by gender or sex has probably come up before - I suggest you ask at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography.—greenrd 19:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

So, pretty much anywhere in wikipedia, if you write something on your own, it gets a "citation needed" or "original research" tag on it. So, who wrote all this code, in all these programming articles? Why isn't that "original research?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.109.226 (talk) 14:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

See WP:CITE and WP:V. Code tends to go unchallenged, and in some cases original code is necessary when it's not available from reliable sources. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 13:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a valid question. I asked this question some while ago at Wikipedia:Request for comments, and it turns out that basically, if an article states "This code implements the FooBar algorithm", and cites a source for the FooBar algorithm, the code can be included - as long as someone who understood the programming language used and the reference could verify that the code does, indeed implement the algorithm described. In general, if a stated claim is an uncontroversial consequence of something in a reference, it can stay. This is not made very clear in the main WP:V guideline (although it is mentioned in one of the Science sourcing guidelines). It would be nice if someone would improve WP:V to include this information.—greenrd (talk) 14:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

Ross Overbeek at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ross Overbeek (2nd nomination) (25 November 2007) Snow Kept

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Error-correcting codes with feedback has been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Error-correcting codes with feedback 132.205.99.122 (talk) 23:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they are keeping it, there was some manageable issue with copyvio; seemingly the author of a book wrote the article with material from their book. Pete St.John (talk) 23:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added the CompSci wikiproject template to Genetic algorithm, mainly because it had the Molecular and Cellular Biology template (!) which was confusing some folks. I elaborated on the confusions at the MCB project talk page, re Genetic Computing vs GA vs Models & Simulations of Genetics. After all this, I really want to team up with a biochemist, and build a Genetic Computer to run a Genetic Algorithm to optimize the parameters of a Genetic Simulation...of the Genetic Computer :-) Pete St.John (talk) 23:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Would it be logical to merge Type system and Typed and untyped languages? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we can safely just redirect Typed and untyped languages to Type system. There doesn't look like much additional content there to merge. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur with David. Although I'd suggest redirecting to Programming language#Type system, which gives a quick high-level view of the major issues, plus a link through to Type system for those who want the gory details of various type systems. --Allan McInnes (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur with the overall merge, and specifically Allan's suggestions. Seems like a relatively "clean" case, especially as Typed and untyped languages has so little content. Do we need to get a specific number of "votes"? Who performs the merge and redirect at this/that point? I'd be happy to do it... Thanks. WalterGR (talk) 07:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The knowledge discovery article claims to be "a concept of the field of computer science" and further states that data mining is its most well known branch. The only reference I found to either of these topics in the WP:COMPSCI hierarchy is data mining as a subordinate topic to Databases in the list of basic topics.

I believe that knowledge discovery needs to be adopted by this project but I'm not sure how to propose its inclusion or where it fits. TIA for any thoughts? John Harvey (talk) 06:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

May I request your attention for the following burning question: should the verifier-based definition of NP-complete in the section Formal definitions for P and NP of P = NP problem use the definite article (the verifier) or the indefinite article (a verifier)? The discussion has stalled. See Talk:P = NP problem#Request for comments: "the" verifier or "a" verifier?.  --Lambiam 08:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the discussion stalled, but it did so in a good place, namely at the right answer ("a"). See my remarks on this at the talk page. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

(Cross-posting to wikiproject cryptography, wikiproject computer science, and Wikiproject military history)

Over my Christmas vacation, I happened to get out to the National Cryptologic Museum at the NSA. I photographed basically everything in the musuem, (including all the nameplates so that I could later identify the photographs). There's a *LOT* of neat stuff there.

I've uploaded them to commons, and now I need help insterting them into articles and whatnot. You can find the gallery at User:Raul654/favpics/National Cryptologic Museum. Please insert captions into the gallery (red links for any nonexistent articles) and insert the pictures into relevant articles. Raul654 (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I am looking for other editors to participate in a broad task force to organize Wikipedia's articles on Boolean algebra, propositional logic, and related topics. The current organization is quite idiosyncratic, and has been the subject of discussion before. The initial goal of the task force would be to outline the current structure of these articles (the topics covered by each and how they interconnect) and discuss improvements to this organization. If we are successful we will come out with a proposal that can be announced more widely.

Participating in the task force would not require a large time commitment. If you are interested, please look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Logic/Boolean algebra task force and add yourself to the list of editors. The page was created under WikiProject Logic only for convenience. I hope that I will be able to gather editors with a wide range of backgrounds to participate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. You may be familiar with the Philip Greenspun Illustration Project. $20,000 has been donated to pay for the creation of high quality diagrams for Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Requests are currently being taken at m:Philip Greenspun illustration project/Requests and input from members of this project would be very welcome. If you can think of any diagrams (not photos or maps) that would be useful then I encourage you to suggest them at this page. If there is any free content material that would assist in drawing the diagram then it would be great if you could list that, too.

If there are any related (or unrelated) WikiProjects you think might have some suggestions then please pass this request over. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 16:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

(Note: if moderator feel that it is inappropriate, feel free to remove this content, but could you help me by informing me where to put to get people from Computer science contributor to help me do survey) --Researchsocial

Greg Turk has been nominated for deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Severe weather is in need of your services. A member of the project created a page about the recent tornado outbreak in the United States. User:JForget has tried to upload some photos from the National Weather Service in Memphis. However, the photos are in flash, and we could not find a way to save them. We were hoping that you could show a sneaky way to get around this. Thank you, Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 03:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I miss in your scope the inclusion of subjects about the relation between computers and the people who use them. CS not only overlaps with mathematics, logic, and software engineering, it also overlaps with cognitive psychology, industrial design and ethnography. Unfortunately these subjects are also missing in most CS curricula, even when they are fundamental in industry practice.

Are there any WikiProjects related to these subjects which could be listed as related, or could be these subjects be included in new subcategories (for usability, research into interaction design and language modelling...)? Diego (talk) 10:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Every subject has a "human side"; history and philosophy pertain to every subject, and administration and business management pertain to every department, etc. That said, sure, human-computer interaction is important and I think still growing as a discipline; so it has at least that one article you link. But just as history pertains to every subject, CS, rather, CIS&T (computer and information science and technology) pertains to every subject. In your list of overlaps you didn't even mention electrical engineering; when I was young, we thought of CS as coming from two parents, math and EE. Now it's a very tangled web indeed of contributions across fields, and new fields emerging like dandelions. Certainly HCI is a proper subject of CIST (many computer things, such as mice, are designed explicitly and solely for human use in HCI), and if the articles related to CIST become many, there should be a category or subcategory. But btw, ethnography? Pete St.John (talk) 20:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree wholesale. I think you are misunderstanding what compsci actually is -- you are looking for Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing which deals with more general topics related to computers. Beyond that, all I can tell you is that a linked list has little to do with the shape of your mouse. While everything is related in a six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of way, the subjects you bring up are beyond the scope of this WikiProject. Ham Pastrami (talk) 10:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

What to do with CE articles? They aren't strictly a part of computer science, but they're a bit too technical to lump in with general computing. Should this WikiProject adopt CE topics, at least until another project wants to take over? The article that stands out most is x86 architecture. Seems unjust that it has no parent projects. Ham Pastrami (talk) 11:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I've seen a number of additions of external links to codeuu.com lately. When I follow the links, I find that the content of that site is source code, usually stolen from elsewhere with any descriptions and identifying information removed. An example from this morning: this edit adding a link to what is supposedly a C implementation but actually turns out to be the pseudocode from my old lecture notes that had already been included one link earlier. I had not given permission for my content to be reused in this way.

Given this site's misconduct, I suggest we remove links to them on sight. But I'd welcome further discussion of the issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the site is very suspect with all it's advertisements and spamming on Wikipedia. Remove them and give the the contributer a warning. Mahanga^Talk 20:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's a list of articles currently linking to the site. I removed another link this morning, also a copy of someone else's code. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked into the way these links have been added and it seems like a pretty clear case of spamming (see WikiProject Spam report permanent link. I'm requesting blacklisting so it can't be added again - please speak up at the blacklisting request if that's not a good idea. -- SiobhanHansa 19:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This site is a code site that everyone can edit,you said that it used codes in your old lecture notes,but it was added by anonymous users,when you said to take it down,when we saw it , we immediately delete it.so we are not no respect for copyright,just edit by users from the world.The site will bring great help to the people who want code and study.Jef41341 —Preceding comment was added at 04:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• The codeuu site seems to merely copy free & open source code (or in some cases, merely ostensibly FOSS) into a fairly flat pile, and then advertise. So it's just collecting (probably little) advertising revenue for little added value. We should link so SourceForge, linux libraries, etc, definite monitored and peer-reviewed FOSS sources. However, if they restrain themselves to linking to code for specific algorithms for which there are no better sources, I'd be sympathetic. But if they are just spam linking to increase their hit counts and ad revenues, which is what seems to be the case, then we should blacklist them. Pete St.John (talk) 18:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
• If it's a site that anyone can edit, then it's like a wiki. WP:EL gives high standards for including links to wikis. It needs to be an established site - and it isn't.—greenrd (talk) 20:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
• It sounds like you are directly affiliated with codeuu.com, in which case you shouldn't be inserting links to it into Wikipedia. Please consider following Wikipedia's guidelines on this kind of thing, and posting codeuu.com links to the talk page of articles you think should include a codeuu.com link, and letting other editors decide whether or not the links should be included. --Allan McInnes (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

For those interested: I have thoroughly pruned the list Wikipedia:Missing science topics/NIST Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures. There are now roughly 400 entries remaining: many of these can be handled through the creation of an appropriate redirect but some require a bit more work. Still, it seems like a worthwhile endeavour to finish the job since they would ensure that Wikipedia is doing a good job breadth-wise in algorithmics. Pichpich (talk)

I was going to thank you for pruning that ancient list. I had done a bit of pruning myself a while ago ([1] wow, two years ago). I'll try and do a few this weekend. Mahanga^Talk 20:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You're very welcome. And you'll be even more welcome once you do a few. :-) I'd say that 50% of the remaining entries only need to be redirected to an appropriate target. One thing that will require a bit of extra work is to create a few articles on various External sorting algorithms, like polyphase, cascade merge-sort, external quicksort and so on. Pichpich (talk) 03:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

(Crossed linked with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science & Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy)

The two articles State transition table and Finite state machine are interlinked. For some reason, the state transition table article is under the WikiProject of Philosophy. Plus there are certain things not mentioned in the state transition table article, and could use some more complex examples. The state transition table directly relates to a finite state machine but the article itself seems lacking. Also, the reference section for the finite state machine article seems highly unusual. --AllyUnion (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of ways people are making connections between Wikipedia and objects and locations in the real world. See WikiMapia and Placeopedia, for instance. One neat project is http://semapedia.org (scroll down to "latest tag sightings", and also see the wikiproject at WP:Semapedia), which loads software into cellphones that allows you to take a picture of a 2-D barcode, translate to a wikipedia url, and then read a mobile-appropriate version of the wikipedia page on your cellphone. But there are other ways to make connections between Wikipedia and objects in the home and in the world. I'm not sure if I'm going to Wikimania2008 in Alexandria yet (Egypt is HOT in July, but I have friends who want to go), but the deadline for papers and proposals is mid-March, so I'm wondering if anyone else here wants to think about this stuff for a paper for Wikimania, or would like for me to create an exploratory subproject or task force inside WP:COMPSCI to look at the many, many connections between comp sci topics and this subject. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. An extensive bibliography of academic papers on projects connecting the real world to the web (not specifically Wikipedia) is http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/2006/03/internet-of-things-working.php (not updated in the last two years). You can see many of the connections to academic computer science there. I'll start transferring some of this stuff to a directory off my user page. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, I've just created a Navbox template for {{Computer Science}} similar to what most other WikiProjects have done. I took the sections from the main Computer Science article and padded them out a bit. I was inspired to give this a go when I noticed an editor putting the ToE navbox on the Artificial life article which has nothing to do with Physics. The Technology Navbox is also lacking. If everyone could have a review/edit of Template:Computer_Science and start putting it at the foot of compsci articles I think it would be helpful. - MattOates (Ulti) (talk) 14:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea! Thanks for putting the template together Matt. --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

IBM Building 25 has burned.[2] This is likely to produce a flurry of information which might help document where their hard drive was born. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I have put List of programming languages by category up for deletion. The discussion is here. swaq 19:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

A user moved the Anti-pattern article to bad habit, claiming the term "anti-pattern" is a neologism. As "anti-pattern" is used extensively in the CS literature, I reverted the move. Assuming that the original move was made in good faith, please comment on Talk:Anti-pattern. Thanks, --EngineerScotty (talk) 21:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Many of the articles on graph search algorithms could do with being improved. In particular, it would help if there was agreement on whether pseudocode should be used to show just the basic algorithm, or all the book-keeping that is required in an implementation. For example:

• There is no clear explanation of the different types of search problem (e.g. does the search have to find a node or a path to reach a node; does it have to find an optimal solution or just one solution; and is it a shortest path problem in which optimality is measured by the total cost of the edges of the graph or is there some other measure of optimality). The articles mainly link to search algorithm which does not discuss these issues, or to graph search algorithm which is confusingly a redirect to graph traversal.

• The pseudocode for the A* search algorithm does not mention the heuristic function that is the key feature of the algorithm.

• The best-first search article has some faults that I mention on its talk page.

• The article on beam search has been changed to use sentences that are referenced to various sources. But the result is so confusing that I have added a note suggesting that readers look at an earlier version until the article can be cleaned up.

Is there someone with experience of teaching this whole field who could improve these articles?

JonH (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a "hot" article Virtualization, which needs an expert. Badly! It needs all the commercial stuff removed IMHO. --Kubanczyk (talk) 20:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

{{Unanswered}} Some pages, such as this one have lots of post, and it requires some work to see what has been answered or acknowledged. therefore I have helped make the {{Unanswered}} template that can be put above a section allowing one to quickly glimpse what has been answered. If you were waiting for an answer but never got one as the post in somewhere in the middle tag it! please voice any queries or comments in the talk page ofTemplate:Unanswered (links, talk) and not here. Cheers --Squidonius (talk) 15:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I tagged this article with your project. APK ^{yada yada} 16:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

That article really isn't within the scope of this project. We don't tend to focus on specific software packages here, but rather on the tools and techniques used to develop such packages. You might try the (somewhat more broadly targeted) WikiProject Computing, which might be interested in taking on article about a specific package. Thanks. --Allan McInnes (talk) 21:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

An article that you may be interested in, CASTLE fight, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CASTLE fight. Thank you. Paulbrock (talk) 13:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)