Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing. 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.

Mozilla Firefox has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy (Talk) 22:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I have improved these articles, which are now all a part of stemming, but they still appear on this project page as stuff to work on. I think you can remove them or not count them as stubs any longer. see stemming. sorry I did not know where else to state this information or how to. Josh Froelich 15:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Konstable 01:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Markup language has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

A ridiculous number and variety of articles currently exist which cover various aspects of the topic of binary numerals, binary codes, binary arithmetic, and whatever else binary formats may be used for. Here's a probably-incomplete list of them:

• Computer numbering formats
  • Extremely long and mostly unwikified; originally copied from a public-domain source[1]. Too much information for a single article, in my opinion, since it covers not only the binary system, but octal, hex, signed integers and two's complement, fixed-point and floating-point, ASCII encoding, arithmetic, bitwise operations, and BCD. The information covered here may serve as a good basis for the sum total of binary-number-related information we want to cover, though; this article might be good as a sort of hierarchical parent to all the others, if most of its existing content is split off and/or merged with other articles.
• Integer (computer science)
  • Some have suggested merging this article with Computer numbering formats, though I would disagree; this article covers subjects such as bytes, pointers, and words, and seems more closely related to computer programming, and binary numerals as a datatype, than to binary representation in general.
• Binary numeral system
  • I'm one of the primary authors of this article, so I may be biased: I think this should be the main article for discussing the numeral system itself, and giving a good overview about what binary numerals are. Much of the information currently here should probably be split off. I would consider this article to be on the same hierarchical level as hexadecimal or octal
• Bitwise operation
  • As the name suggests, this article is about bitwise operations: OR, XOR, AND, NOT, shifting, etc. Again, being one of the primary contributors to it, I am biased, but I believe this article is fairly good as it stands, provided it does not overstep its bounds.
• Truncated binary encoding
  • I have a Computer Science degree and I have no clue what this article is about. It needs work.
• Binary encoding (currently redirects to Binary and text files)
  • "Binary encoding" is a somewhat vague term, but if there is enough to say about the subject (and I believe there is), then it should have its own article. It can cover any use of binary as a code, rather than binary as a numeral system, and may link to related articles such as Gray code and Binary-coded decimal, unless it would be better to merge those into a larger article on binary encoding.
• Binary arithmetic (currently redirects to Binary coding)
  • This article should be about doing arithmetic in binary; certainly there is more than enough information between Binary numeral system and Computer numbering formats to fill a lengthy article with nothing but explanation of how addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are performed on integral, real, positive or negative binary numerals. Binary coding should redirect to Binary encoding.
• One's complement (currently redirects to Negative and non-negative numbers)
• Two's complement

Plus a variety of tangentially related articles:

• Bit
• Octal
• Hexadecimal
• Base 64
• Gray code
• Method of complements
• Fixed-point arithmetic
• Binary-coded decimal

Some of the redirected articles above may be unrelated to the topic at hand (namely, binary numbers), but due to the (I believe) poor choice of redirection, seem to be related because they are linked in a context that makes them seem related. For example, Truncated binary encoding links to Binary encoding in a way that would lead the reader to believe there is another article about binary encoding, when in fact the target of the redirect is about binary (as opposed to text) files---an almost completely unrelated subject. Similarly, Negative and non-negative numbers is hardly an article about One's complement, though it does mention the subject briefly.

Anyhow, the idea here is that many of these articles duplicate information, and many are organized in a way that could cause extreme confusion and difficulty for anyone coming here hoping to learn about binary numbers. I'm hoping we can come up with some clear boundaries on what needs to be included in a discussion on binary numbers, and how best to divide that subject into constituent articles. Duplicated information should be merged (especially the information in Binary numeral system and Computer numbering formats, and perhaps additionally Integer (computer science) and Negative and non-negative numbers.)

Previous discussion on this problem exists at Talk:Binary numeral system and most likely at the corresponding talk pages for the other articles listed above. -- Wapcaplet 17:09, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

True, we got to do something with binary-related articles. I think the overall confusion is due to the lack of single point of view. Binary is just a numeral system, strictly speaking nothing to do with the computers. Negative numbers can be represented just like as ordinary decimal numbers. But on the computer, the numbers are represented differently. Negative numbers are commonly represented using two's completement, thus, you need a slightly different arithmetic to calculate such. Confusing is that for example, if you use sign and magunitude method, you have negative and positive zeros. Not mention to comparison of sign and unsigned numbers.

So my suggestion is to have basically two parts: one dealting with the binary numeral system as a mathematical topic and have some binary representation and computation on the computers. Or is it alreadly the way articles are organized now? Honestly, I am not fully aware of articles above.

Anyway, let's take a look at each article:

• Computer numbering formats - I believe our agreement is get rid of this someday.
• Integer (computer science) - it has a good content but I am not sure what the article is about. If it is about a integer datatype then it's fine but mentions about mega or tera must be gone in that case.
• Bitwise operation - actually this is a duplicate article with logical operations. But it focuses on computer topic so I guess it has a reson de'tal (not sure how to spell).
  • raison d'etre perhaps? --MarSch 16:28, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Binary arithmetic - I would like to see this article is actually rewritten. It is an interesting topic.

Regarding complement articles, I propose to have an article named negative numbers on the computer or something. Discussion of negative numbers with the computer in negative and non-negative numbers can go to there.

Also, having some table, popular recently, is a nice way to avoid contributors create further duplication.

-- Taku 06:52, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I've created a prototype for a hardware taxobox (aimed at DEC stuff right now, but it could probably be expanded) at User:Lady Lysine Ikinsile/sandbox. I think something like this would be useful for an overview of the various hardware articles .. comments? — Lady Lysine Ikinsile 08:21, 2004 Jun 21 (UTC)

In my browser (Mozilla Firefox) at least, your taxobox's title is in black text on black background. Other than that, looks like a great idea! --FOo 16:09, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How strange. I'm using Firefox 0.8 and it shows as white on black.

{| border=1 align=right
 |- style="background-color: black; color: white; text-align: center;" 
 ! colspan="2" | DEC VAX

Does the color: appear correctly in the HTML source? — Lady Lysine Ikinsile 16:25, 2004 Jun 21 (UTC)

Yes, it does. How weird. --FOo 16:48, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering if we could merge a new Wikiproject I just created (not knowing you guys existed!). The project is Wikipedia:WikiProject computers and we have some structure already. Would anyone be opposed if we merged? - Ta bu shi da yu 14:10, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK, let's kick this off. I've realised that there are an absolute ton of articles on Computers and computing technology that we would do well to expand and cleanup. After all, one thing Wikipedia has a lot of is computer geeks :P We have programmers, sys admins, helpdesk operators, computer users, systems analysts, hardware junkies... you name it: we've got 'em. I figure that we should organise some of that enthusiasm by making a Wikiproject!

I fist came to realise just how many articles needed cleaning up and expanding upon when I edited Btrieve (which I use at work and know a little bit about). When I checked what links to it, I found Wikipedia:Free On-line Dictionary of Computing/symbols - B — an entire list of computer related terms that we still have to expand upon! And we can do it, too. We just need somewhere to coordinate things.

The initial thing I think we need to do is to work out what the various areas of computers we should be writing about. I think we can broadly categorise computing technology in these areas:

1. Software
   1. Programming
   2. Operating systems
   3. Applications
2. Networking
3. Security
4. Hardware

What do people think?

Ta bu shi da yu 08:00, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can you clarify a bit what Programming would include? Where would articles such as Boyer-Moore string searching algorithm and Hash table fall in your proposed categorization? -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:30, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Under algorithms, under programming? my structure's not set in stone... I'd be happy to take on board suggestions. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How about format articles, such as ISO 9660? ... I'm wondering if part of the difficulty is that a lot of computer science is not tied to hardware or software or in fact to computers as we now know them, and so they don't sort neatly under the current structure as far as I can see. This is not to say that I necessarily have any better idea. =/ -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:54, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm thinking of joining this project, but I don't like the "how-to" focus you seem to be headed toward. I'm much more interested in a historical focus. Is that part of what you have in mind, or would it just be pointless for me to join? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:10, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Any howto's written on Wikipedia will likely be moved elsewhere (probably Wikibooks) as they're not encyclopedic. Dori | Talk 02:58, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

In that case, either the project page as it now stands doesn't reflect the proposed project, or the project isn't going to be in Wikipedia. Someone is presumably proposing this thing. Could he/she possibly get the project page to where it gives at least a moderately accurate indication of the intended scope? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:37, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I grabbed that straight from the Wikiproject template. I thought it was odd also. Feel free to remove it. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Removed. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:49, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

But virtually all of the "goals" are still how-to articles... -- Jmabel | Talk 09:23, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've restructured a bit, with some help from the bellman. What do you think? - Ta bu shi da yu 13:29, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Much improved. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:54, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Note: at the time this discussion section was started, the present talk page was at Wikipedia:WikiProject Computers. The move here was a result of this discussion.

It seems to me that Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computing is virtually the same project as this one. How are the two different? [[User:Franl|— franl (talk)]] 14:01, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Gah! That wasn't on the list of Wikiprojects. I think we have a bit more structure... I'll post a message on their page asking for a merger. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:07, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The project list is divided into "active projects" and "all projects". Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computing hasn't been on the active list in a while. Perhaps that's why you didn't see it. Anyway, I think a merger is best (and will generate interest and participation). [[User:Franl|— franl (talk)]] 15:33, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

I'm putting items on this list because, well, they seem like they need to be done. If anyone disagrees whether they should be done, please say so... -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:29, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Fix the computer-related sections of Function, Procedure (programming), Function (programming), Procedure, Subprogram, and Subroutine so that they have clean, simple relationships to each other. Currently one can follow a link on Function titled "function procedure" which actually goes to Procedure (programming) which is a redirect to Procedure, which disambiguates a procedure in computer programming with a link to Subprogram which is a redirect to Subroutine. -- Antaeus Feldspar 08:33, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Okay, I've turned Procedure (programming) into a redirect straight to Subroutine. Some evidence indicates that Subroutine was originally Subprogram; does anyone else think that perhaps it should be moved back? My feeling on doing so is that all subroutines are subprograms but not all subprograms are subroutines, thus Subprogram is the more appropriate location. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:25, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I would prefer not to. "Subroutine" is very standard terminology in a number of languages (not to mention computer architectures, come to think of it, since many have built-in support for subroutines) for a named entity that is called (usually with arguments) and (optionally) returns a value. It's a very well understood, and, more importantly, well defined concept. To me, "subprogram" is a much less well-defined concept, and I therefore think it would be a bad idea to put the two on the same page. Keep "subroutine" for the well-defined programming language construct. Noel (talk) 20:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Reorganize the very broad [[Category:Computer terminology]] into more manageable subcategories. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:29, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Help with moving huge piles of computer stubs {{compu-stub}} over to the sharper category of microcomputer stubs {{microcompu-stub}}. --Wernher 21:57, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Or to other appropriate specific categories, which are listed at Category:Computer stubs. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:50, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Okay, on this subject -- is Category:Programming language stubs appropriate for stubs about things that can be implemented in programming languages, or only stubs about programming languages themselves? -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:25, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Looking at the existing stubs, it might be good to separate "software" (i.e., that which is not hardware) from "applications" (i.e., a finished program that a user interacts with. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:33, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We are having a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Qualculus on what to do with the article Qualculus, which seems to be used as a methodology for designing databases. Basically, we are trying to establish whether such a thing really exists. I was hoping that some of you could give us some input on this matter. -- Jitse Niesen 16:39, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd suggest listing this on VfD. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:11, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The wikipedia pages dealing with these concepts came to my attention through items on the PlanetLISP news feed, and I'm unhappy with what I've so far seen. I've put together a first attempt at a definition on my weblog [2]; I'm interested in putting together a more useful and consistent terminology for Wikipedia that is closer to what researchers use. I haven't got a great deal of time before the semester here ends (in three weeks) to comment on & edit the particular pages, but I thought I'd try to get feedback on:

• What definitions should we be using? Are there any serious problems with the definitions I proposed in my weblog entry?
• Where should the definitions go? (I suggest we create a Parallelism and concurrency page);
• Can we assemble a collection of definitions from authoratative sources? ---- Charles Stewart 13:29, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I ran into problems finding good, precise definitions of these concepts while trying to tune up the Cilk article. To clarify -- how would you classify SIMD (I believe that's the term): Single Instruction, Multiple Data?

I think "distributed" is a little easier to separate out from the others. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:01, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For those of you interested in early computers, I am assembling a large annotated bibliography on the subject at Wikipedia:WikiProject Early computers/Books, as part of the Early computers WikiProject. I'm also starting to collect a directory of web links to sites with particular broad and authoritative collections of online stuff, although that's not as far along yet. Noel (talk) 17:21, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm writing a navigational template for GNU/Linux - various distros and the like will be linked. See Template:Linux if you would like to help. Alphax ^τεχ 02:39, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone? I'm stumped. Alphax ^τεχ 03:18, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've added a few. Here is the template

there seems to be something wrong with tr:Template:Linux... --MarSch 16:21, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at Binkered and merge it, categorise it etc where appropriate. Thanks --nixie 01:44, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article JFFS2, about a journaling file system for flash memory devices, has been listed for deletion. Votes welcome. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:52, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Purusing WP:FA, I notice there are three featured articles on Winows and let's say one (Common Unix Printing System) on any oher OS. I understand the vagaries of interest, expertise, and machinations of WP:FAC all come into play, but does anyone else think that we should make a concerted effort to get some non-Windows OS articles to featured status to avoid the appearance of a pro-Microsoft POV? Linux has been nominated twice. It doesn't look like Mac OS or Unix have ever been nominated. I'm curious what others think about this. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:13, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

I know this has very little priority in the matter of 'what must be done first'. However when browsing around Wikipedia I ran across the article on ZEBRA (computer). However, despite its great depth of detail. That detail seems to drag along a LARGE amount of highly technical terms that the average computer user wouldn't understand. I'd be happy if someone could convert all of the terms in the article to simpler terminology.

Nateland 00:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sections== I have seem a couple of software articles in which a section called competitors existed. I removed these as they don't seem notable to the product itself and seem arbitrary. Many products link to a list of xxx or have a category which fulfil the desire to find similar products. I appreciate any other views on 'Competitors' sections? GameKeeper 12:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Quantum computer has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Stumbled upon this: Acer Aspire 3680 That article is probably not notable and should probably be deleted. If not, it needs very significant improvent. Cheers, Shinobu 13:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Although there are some GAs and FAs, there are also a bunch of B-class articles out there that fall under this project and the subprojects. I propose that this project have an assessment subpage tied with WP:1.0, so that we know how many articles fall under this project and the subprojects' scopes. It also gives us an idea of how this project is doing with Wikipedia quality standards. Comments? V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · ER 3} 18:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I saw that Talk:A-Plot received an "Wikiproject Computing template from a bot. I don't understand why. It doesn't seem an article in the Wikiproject scope. Is it an error on the MessedRobot Cate | _Talk 14:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Where is the assesment scale for importance? The link goes to Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing, but that page contains nothing about the criteria for determining the importance of an article. -- Mikeblas 13:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

A proposed importance criteria has been posted on WP:COMP/A. V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions} 21:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I noticed that the MessedRobot started adding the "WikiProject Computing" template to the talkpages of cryptography articles. I would prefer you would not do that. We already have a {{CryptographyProject}} template that is more appropriate.

If all "parent" WikiProjects to crypto would add their templates then we would get 5-10 different templates on top of each crypto talkpage. That will be very confusing for editors. It is also confusing as it is now that some articles now only have the "WikiProject Computing" template and not the "CryptographyProject" template.

Before you start masstaging crypto articles I suggest you first take it up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cryptography.

--David Göthberg 06:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The same thing happened with articles marked as being part of the Microsoft Windows WikiProject. -/- Warren 05:15, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I will skip all talk pages that contain: {{, which means it already has a template, so if our descendant wikiproject has already tagged it, I won't tag it.

To see the categories I am talking about visit here: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/KhunterBot, and post your comments there. Thnx. --Khunter 14:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Replied. V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions} 15:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --Khunter 15:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please take a look at Babylon (program). There is some debate on how (or if) user forums can be cited to monitor software issues talk:babylon (program). 81.37.66.244 15:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

A forum is not a reliable source for anything, especially criticism of a subject. — CharlotteWebb 20:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Dear colleques:

I self-nominated the Itanium article for Featured Article status. So far only one editor has reviewed the article, and that editor is not a computer person. I would deeply appreciate if you would review the article and add comments to the FAC.Please review WP:FAC before commenting. Thanks. -Arch dude 01:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The article Xputer and associated articles Auto-sequencing memory and Generic Address Generator have been nominated for deletion. There seem to be references, but all from a single group. I can't judge importance of this, so could an expert have a look and either remove the tags altogether or send to AfD or whatever seems suitable.DGG 21:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)