Computing Project‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing articles Project This page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

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Several templates like {{WikiProject Software}} and {{WikiProject Microsoft Windows}} automatically list the article in the Computing categories. They also provide a general computing importance assessment even if it's not explicitly provided. This inherited assessment is often misleading: something high-importance in Windows might be low-importance to computing. Similarly, something high-importance in computing might be only in a small way related to Software, Windows, etc.

I'd like to remove the automatic inheritance and change to this behavior: articles retain their Software or Windows importance, but are listed as Unknown-importance for Computing unless a general computing assessment is explicitly provided using computing-importance=.

This will help in three ways:

1. Encourage making a better importance assessment for general computing
2. Avoid unexpected changes to the Computing importance that result from changing e.g. the Software or Windows importance
3. Bring attention to the parameter for general computing importance, reducing the likelihood of articles accidently being listed in multiple Computing importance categories. (This causes false entries in the Computing reassessment log – see discussion at WP:COMP/A – and likely other problems as well.) --Pnm (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea to me. —Ruud 02:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I support this. --Kvng (talk) 14:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree --trevj (talk) 08:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Questions:

1. Did we already make this change Pnm?
2. What happens to all the current articles that have importance= set?
3. Do those automatically get renamed to computing-importance= or do we have to do something manually?

§ Music Sorter § (talk) 08:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, coming from Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 March 4#Digital_number I am sort of surprised that we really don't have a suitable article to redirect to. I've been looking what the most reasonable article is to create. I'm thinking of something like number representation system which would be a sort of summary style article, or possibly a list of number reprensentation systems? That would leave the called for redirect still hanging. Something like number representation (computer science) which could be a summary style article, looking at integer representation, signed/unsigned, endianess, floating point representation, big number representation etc? What do you guys think? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's Computer numbering formats, but that needs some work. Also, Signed number representations. —Ruud 20:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ouch, that certainly needs work, if not a complete rewrite, but would at least be suitable as a redirect target for the discussion. There are also floating point number, binary notation etc. etc. that all discuss something related, but don't do the overview. Thanks for the help. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notice: An RFC is being conducted here at Talk:Hard diskdrive#RFC on the use of the IEC prefixes. The debate concerns this table which includes columns comparing SI and Binary prefixes to describe storage capacity. We welcome your input

--RaptorHunter (talk) 18:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have an article on my user page that I would like reviewed and feel free to edit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JLRedperson/HP_Business_Service_Automation The article is about HP Business Service Automation software to complement the BMC Control Manager article, the Tivoli Service Automation Manager article and the Severa article. All feedback to improve the article are most welcome.JLRedperson (talk) 23:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

the usage of Steve Chen is under discussion, see Talk:Steve Chen (YouTube). 65.94.45.160 (talk) 05:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Apologies in advance for any improprieties; this is my first attempt to engage)

I thought to post these comments in a discussion rather than to attempt to edit the article, since this is my first attempt.

My comments refer to article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_control_board

I acknowledge first of all that "Change" Control Board is the vernacular, but the formal term for decades has been "Configuration" Control Board among Configuration Management professionals. There are historic reasons behind this, but that strays from what I want to focus on.

The article says a CCB is a committee. That is certainly one implementation, but it is not the only one or necessarily the best for a given situation. E.g. IEEE Standard 828 (2005) "Standard for Software Configuration Management Plans" says in section 3.3.2.3 "A CCB may be an individual or a group".

The critical feature of a CCB is not its size but the recorded delegation of management authority to approve what changes will and won't be made to a system under its jurisdiction.

The trade offs regarding the membership of a CCB include speed and evidence of enforced collaboration. Generally speaking, it is faster to delegate management authority to an single individual, who is accountable to gather input informally from multiple roles before pronouncing the binding decision. Automated systems can be implemented so that automated baselines/builds/deployments can be initiated as soon as the individual records an approval in a tracking tool.

On the other hand, if: - senior management wants to delegate a level of authority for some aspect of a system - senior management wants to be assured that full consensus has been sought without being personally involved

...then it may be preferable to charter a CCB as a committee. The charter could constrain committee to perform in such a way that supports auditing that the authority has been discharged as delegated. A multi-member CCB might be important for large, expensive, high impact (e.g. system failure has unacceptable consequences such as the loss of human life) applications engineered by entities with separate agendas (e.g. separate corporations or silo'd organizations within a single corporation with separate management trees).

I hope these comments are helpful,

Bill Buie (talk) 17:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Your arguments make sense. If no others object, go ahead and edit the article with your changes. JLRedperson (talk) 23:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The more appropriate place to initiate discussion on this is on the article's talk page. It sounds like you have some referenced material to contribute to the article. I recommend you be WP:BOLD and add the material to the article. Discussion beforehand is not always necessary. --Kvng (talk) 15:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does Talk:Instant messaging#“citation needed” en masse mean it can remain as an example of a B-class article? --Trevj (talk) 10:39, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings, as of the last month or so I'm the main guy holding down the fort at Wikipedia:Requests for feedback, and I could really use some additional help. RfF has been an outstanding experience in providing editing help to new editors who really want help and, in the majority of cases, are quick to incorporate feedback and really add to the value of their articles. We've had a number of requests for feedback on computer/programming/robotics/technology articles, and I'm not really familiar with that world or with that aspect of Wiki.

RfF doesn't require any fixed time commitment, and many feedbacks can be knocked out in literally five minutes or less, so even dropping by once or twice a week for five minutes would aid considerably in answering as many requests as possible, and consequently both encouraging new editors (who may become long-term serious editors) as well as maintaining high Wikipedia standards.

If anyone is willing to step up and drop by even a few times a week for just a few minutes, I would be profoundly grateful, as that would allow me to answer more requests for topics I specialise in (history, art, religion). Thanks! MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:23, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

C Sharp (programming language) has been requested to be renamed to C♯ (programming language) ; see Talk:C Sharp (programming language). 64.229.100.153 (talk) 04:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GNU/Linux naming controversy. - Ahunt (talk) 12:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I just wrote DDR4 SDRAM. As with most DDR and SDRAM, the article has to carefully distinguish clock rates and data rates. I notice someone has edited the article replacing sourced data by unsourced data and MHz by MT/s. I've reverted this and checked it to source, but as I'm not an expert I would like to ask that someone checks my revert and that the data in the article is correct (and per source).

DIFF

Thanks! FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

System bus model has been nominated for deletion, however on the talk page, there is a suggestion that it be merged instead of going to AfD. 184.144.163.181 (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was no consensus, but we agreed this area needs work. I took the step of expanding the system bus article from a redirect, trying to give some historical context. Help would be appreciated if anyone is here. W Nowicki (talk) 20:56, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. New article, Music Beta by Google (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - would this come under your remit?

The hope is, as more news comes out, to expand it for a DYK at least (over the coming days).

Cheers,  Chzz  ►  17:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The "Edit conflict" article is at AFD, as it falls under your WikiProject I thought I would inform you. --81.164.215.61 (talk) 16:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In reference to ANTIC#Display list example program: I want to propose that we remove this example program from the article. The example is written in BASIC and just writes a whole bunch of numbers one-at-a-time to what appears to be an arbitrary address space. It takes specialized knowledge that the average reader isn't likely to have, even with the rest of the info in the article, to know that the starting address is within the ANTIC's default memory space and that the data being written is a properly formatted display list. The DATA numbers by themselves are meaningless and do not actually illustrate how a display list works.

I wrote in Talk:ANTIC that if we need to have this sort of technical data in the article, a disassembly example of the ANTIC's memory space would be much more useful, as the standard assembly format would clearly show each instruction and its corresponding data, and is easy to annotate appropriately. However, even then, this information would really only be useful to technical enthusiasts and programmers, while the average reader would likely find it just as confusing and irrelevant as the BASIC program. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an FYI, I went ahead and did this a couple days ago. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:09, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please review:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PL/0#Update_links_to_external_PL.2F0_compiler

Thanks Ioquatix (talk) 14:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A personal computer is described as "a general-purpose computer [...] useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator". The ENIAC is the "first general-purpose electronic computer". We have a history of general purpose CPUs. But I can't find any article that describes what is a general purpose computer and what a specific purpose computer, what are the differences, the advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, searching "general purpose" ends in the article on Jeep! Can anyone do one or two following this example? --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

System bus model has been nominated for deletion again. The last deletion discussion was closed on 22 May, this discussion was opened on 1 June. 65.94.44.141 (talk) 04:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And then closed speedily, sigh. Seemed a bit premature, since some of the arguments for quick closing are not based on actual facts. I will make another proposal on the talk page. W Nowicki (talk) 17:38, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on a project for an interactive tutorial for new editors and we're trying to mock-up the first units/levels (http://enwp.org/User:Ocaasi/The_Wikipedia_Game). I need a few good images of the Wikipedia interface, and some dialogue boxes and basic interface shots for the alpha version which will be done in Adobe Flash. Does anyone have basic photoshop skills and a few hours? Any help would be much appreciated. User:Ocaasi ^c 00:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lulz Security has been in the news so I created an article about them. It is currently up for speedy delete. I would love input on the article, and help if you think the topic is worth pursuing. Polyquest (talk) 00:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No longer under speedy delete.Polyquest (talk) 00:53, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A large number of computing related articles were recently listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2011 May 26 after being identified as having potential copyvio issues. These articles have been edited to remove the copyvio material, but many such as Fibre Channel over IP, Multicast Open Shortest Path First, etc now need to be properly expanded. Some articles such as High-Performance Parallel Interface (HPPI) will need to be rewritten from scratch. --Tothwolf (talk) 21:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How useful is Category:Machine code? Should it be sent to WP:CfD for deletion? The category looks like that it is an example of over-categorization; the articles are "relevant" to the category, but are either separated by some distance or belong elsewhere in categories that are more relevant and intuitive to the reader.

To elaborate, there are currently 15 articles in the category:

1. Machine code
2. Addressing mode
3. Code generation (compiler)
4. Code injection
5. CPUID
6. Halt and Catch Fire
7. HLT
8. Illegal opcode
9. Indirect branch
10. Interrupts in 65xx processors
11. MLX (software)
12. NOP
13. Opcode
14. Operand
15. SEX (computing)

• Article #2 is a more intuitively categorized as a compiler topic.
• Article #4 is more of a computer security topic; the question is not whether machine code has relevance, but whether it is characteristic of the topic.
• Articles #5, 6, 7, 12, and 15 are instructions that are specific to an ISA or are mnemonics common to several ISAs. While instructions are expressed as machine code, it is far more useful to categorize them under the ISA they belong to; or if they are common to several ISAs, in a general category about generic ISA features.
• Articles #2 and 9 are ISA topics. #9 is also a type of instruction. Both are only relevant to machine code if we view them from the perspective that if such concepts are implemented in instructions, we would get machine code.
• Article #8 is about how ISAs encode information in an instruction to convey to the computer what action should be done; and article #13 is about what processors do when such an undefined opcode is encountered, which is an ISA and implementation issue.
• Article #10 is about how interrupts are handled in the 6502 ISA and its derivatives. It belongs in Category:65xx microprocessors/
• Article #11 is a program for typing machine code. It is no different from a hex editor or another utility that can manipulate machine code. Hex editors are not categorized under this category.
• Article #14 is data. Programs contain data, but to consider this fact a distinguishing feature that makes it relevant to machine code might be crossing the line separating relevance from irrelevance.

Rilak (talk) 06:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The category is a bit odd, although there might be other more pressing issues with the project. For example, the machine code article itself has most paragraphs lacking any citations at all. The whole article seems to conflating the topics of instruction set architecture, assembly language, and object or executable file. "Machine code" is almost just slang, with one of the more specific technical terms usually intended, I think. Almost should be a disambig page? The categories might have the confusion.

Articles can certainly have more than one category, but perhaps the issue is that Category:Machine code is now classified as being in both Category:Instruction processing and Category:Assembly languages, while most articles are already in one or the other already? For example, Addressing mode right now is in the top-level Category:Computer architecture, as well as Assembly languages already. So moving it down into Category:Instruction processing would probably make more sense, when it would be redundant with being in Category:Machine code. I would also agree that putting it in Category:Compilers or a subcat would also make sense. So in general I would agree with you, especially if you are volunteering to do the category clean up. W Nowicki (talk) 20:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the oddness of the machine code category is because the articles are there because of trivial intersections. I'm not disputing that articles can and should belong to other categories; but that it is unnecessary to have a category like machine code. Articles are included without any consistency. It looks completely arbitrary to me. For example, why isn't software categorized under it? Anything that isn't source code, byte code, or some intermediate representation is machine code after all. But I think that would just be pedantic and not useful. The category would be too broad in scope. Categories are for navigation, not for building a giant web that links everything to everything else. I think most people don't think of the topics in machine code like the category does, and I don't think anything resembling the category exists outside of Wikipedia. About what I intend to do; I would like to remove all members of the machine code category out, make sure they are categorized in relevant categories, and have the category deleted.

Regarding Machine code, it does indeed look like synthesis (and that's maybe why it is poorly referenced). I don't have any idea what to do with it. A disambiguation page might be appropriate, but I question whether anyone really confuses ISA with programs in a machine usable form. Rilak (talk) 01:53, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you nor I would confuse ISA with Machine code, but the article makes it look like an editor did, since the Machine code#Example section is really an example of how the MIPS ISA is encoded. I think the concept might be writing code using numeric instructions instead of assembler? If so, missing the important point that this was the common practice before assemblers were invented (and still done for a while with really early minicomputers, microcode or simple state machines, etc.). MIPS probably a bad example because assemblers were clearly in use by then. Sadly, Object code redirects to Object file, which in the first sentence of the lead defines it as sequences of machine code. Then the rest talks about file formats. Maybe the thing to do is get the category cleaned up (remove articles from it etc.), propose its deletion, and just rewrite machine code to include more cited historical examples, clarifying for example how front-panel switches, binary/decimal/octal/hex etc. was used, and then mention the transition to assemblers at the end with the {{main}} that is there now. Might take some time. W Nowicki (talk) 23:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated WikiProject Microsoft for deletion at WP:MFD. Please comment here for any concerns. Thank you for your time. JJ98 (Talk) 01:28, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus seems heading to making it a sub-project ("task force"?) of this one, but still not sure what the actual logistics are, besides maybe moving the page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/Microsoft or somesuch. W Nowicki (talk) 16:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The usage of neural network is under discussion. See the requested move at talk:biological neural network and the discussion at talk:neural network. As neural nets are a big topic in AI, I thought you'd like to know. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 05:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion was consolidated at Talk:Neural network, with a proposal to merge biological neural network into it. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 05:13, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deep Web has been requested to be renamed, see Talk:Deep Web . 65.94.47.63 (talk) 10:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Thin client#Network computer. Trevj (talk) 13:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}})[reply]

re Software Lifecycle Management (SLM) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)

Hi all - I propose to extend the SLM entry or create an alternative one for the following reasons: 1. The current wikipedia entry on SLM discusses solely software licensing issues. 2. The wikipedia entry for ALM requires a new perspective which I propose to be titled SLM. SLM is an abstraction of ALM. 3. SLM covers all software not just applications. Thus it covers in addition:

3.a embedded software in products.
3.b integration software used to glue components - such components may be Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS).
3.c configuration scripts used to build and deploy software releases.
3.d software testing scripts.
3.e software supplied by external parties (partners, offshore, near-shore, contractors, COTS, open source, etc).
3.f anything recognisable as software and not necessarilly a stand alone application.

4. ALM is also highly tool oriented as a concept - to many in the IT industry, ALM means an ALM system/solution. SLM places processes and people above tools - tool selection is made to fit the process and people, which in turn are chosen on the needs of the development project. 5. Who am I: I need to declare an interest as I work as an IT industry analyst for one of the larger analyst firms. My employer has not branded SLM in any way but my research articles have been the first to use SLM as an alternative to ALM (these articles are available to our subscribers). My intention with the wikipedia entry is to flesh out the above comments 3.a-3.f.

Finally, I'm aware that wikipedia is designed to reflect the world rather than to pioneer new concepts. My view is that SLM does reflect an evolution of ALM and the current SLM wikipedia entry is a rather narrow definition (with limited usage by others in my experience).

I'm interested to see this community's opinion on the SLM question and whether you believe: i) SLM is a valid wikipedia entry ii) if i) yes then should it extend the current SLM entry, extend the current ALM entry, have a separate entry of its own, or a mix of these options.

Cheers Emazoff (talk) 15:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The current Software Lifecycle Management article is totally unsourced, and only incoming links are from an acronym and Lifecycle management. The acronym SLIM points to Putnam model, which does not mention the SLIM acronym nor link to Software Lifecycle Management. It looks like it was started in 2007 as an ad for SecureLM, which is why it only mentioned licensing, and never expanded. I would say expand (or replace) the existing one to describe the more broader term. SecureLM does not even link back to it. Application lifecycle management also seems to overlap, so maybe even a merge might be in order. The direction would go towards the "more common" form. Also the convention is to use lower case except for proper names (even if normal jargon acronymizes it), so Software lifecycle management would be the correct title if it were to remain separate. Software lifecycle and Software development life cycle redirect to Software development process which might make sense, while Software life-cycle redirects to Software release life cycle which is what I would expect a Software Lifecycle Management product to handle, not just licensing. I cannot think of any reason to start yet a another article. An article has to be a new "topic" which has multiple independent sources, not just a new term for an old idea.

Be careful of course to consider the conflict of interest guidelines and especially Wikipedia:No original research. In rare cases you might be able to cite your own reports, if they are easily accessible (e.g. do not require purchase) to be verified. Better might be to cire the sources you use in your reports, or other easily verifiable ones. Thanks for volunteering to improve these. W Nowicki (talk) 16:47, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on the notability guidelines for specialized books, such as programming or math is going on at Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Criterion out of context. Some editors maintain that book that have not been covered in-depth in venues for a general audience, such as the New York Times, should be deleted from Wikipedia. However, recent AfD discussion on math and programming books ended up with such books being kept if they pass the less restrictive WP:GNG, for example Learning Perl or Perl Cookbook. Please voice your opinion in that guideline discussion. There is a balancing concern that probably most books by O'Reilly publishes for instance would qualify under GNG, making Wikipedia catalog of such books. However, closing administrators in those discussions chose to ignore WP:NOTCATALOG. FuFoFuEd (talk) 01:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are there computers on the ISS ? or is it all run by clockwork ? Just asking, a month ago you could read the entire international space station article and never know. Cool! ... NOT Lads_Pawn_Missn_Cntrl_butt_In_Cntr_Strike.jpg from the page here.

We could use some help here. Anyone got 10 minutes ? Please come to the ISS talk page to help. Penyulap _talk 15:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated International Space Station for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Please understand, this is about an effort to improve the article, and get some new blood and new ideas into this article. Penyulap _talk 15:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_path says "A relative path is a path relative to the working directory of the user or application ...". That is correct regards paths used on a computer but is not a complete definition. There is a third case, for example when writing documentation, when relative paths are paths relative to any known directory. Nh5h (talk) 03:09, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nh5h, if you can help find a source referencing that 3rd case we can add that information to the article. If you like you can even give it a try yourself and ask someone here to look over your changes if you are a new editor at WP. § Music Sorter § (talk) 07:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even if you don't have a source, it's probably worth a mention at Talk:Path (computing) for the benefit of future editors of the article. --Trevj (talk) 10:24, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, a user has added some photos to IBM PC keyboard#Keyboard layouts. I totally fail to see how those add value to the article. On the contrary, I think they turn a good gallery of illustrations for the standard key layouts (as described in the text) into an unsorted list of keyboard pictures that could pretty much contain any photo of a PC keyboard ever, without any inclusion or exclusion criteria. (Plus, all the ™s and ®s add an irritating advertising flavor.)

But my arguments don't seem to convince the user., so I'd appreciate some additional comments/opinions about the suitability of those photos. Thanks --Berntie (talk) 23:14, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a problem with the photos per say, but I think they would be better suited in a new subsection of the article which discusses programmable key keyboards. --Tothwolf (talk) 23:40, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]