Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used

Revive Proposed Change: Add "Repository" Field

See proposal on infobox talk page:

This proposal was made, and not done previously: Template talk:Infobox software/Archive 3#Source Code Repository Field. I'd like to revive the change, which I have commenced through opportunity for discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software, as well as with a specific diff of the proposed edit.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattsenate (talk • contribs) 17:57, 16 May 2013‎ (UTC)

Timeline of computing: A great way to do computing history. Some additions.[

This is one of my favorite ways to understand history. I like the timeline and want to help. Olson is misspelled-- it is Ken Olsen. The quote date is unclear. Teletype is a trade name and trademarked. There are a lot of other minor errors, but this is probably the best form to do history so that every item on it will point to a Wikipedia entry.

Don't make it any smaller... make it bigger. Scrolling horizontally for more time would be nice. Scrolling vertically for more categories is also necessary.

Can I urge someone to take the entries of my timeline and add them to this one? My timeline is an excel sheet has 500 plus entries accessible here. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Computer_History_Timeline_BC-2013_Gordon_Bell.htmCgordonbell (talk) 06:01, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Techcrunch article: How Hackers Beat The NSA In The ’90s And How They Can Do It Again

Here is a possible article:

• Ferenstein, Gregory. "How Hackers Beat The NSA In The ’90s And How They Can Do It Again." (Archive) Techcrunch. June 28, 2013.

Where would this go? WhisperToMe (talk) 08:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Retrocomputing

I'm asking here too, in order to get the discussion going. I have to take issue with the current state of the category Category:Retrocomputing. It includes Wikipedia articles for several computing systems that were in use from the 1970s to the 1990s, but are not in use any more. The reason for this issue is that the computing systems themselves are not "retrocomputing" - they were the cutting edge of technology when they were released, and the vendors did not think "people will fondly remember these half a century in the future", they sold them as new products. Labelling them as "retrocomputing" retcons their entire lifetime as hobbyist toys rather than actual computers, and retconning itself should be avoided. With this logic, every computer a couple of decades old becomes "retrocomputing". In my opinion, "retrocomputing" should be specifically used to mean running software for old, legacy, obsolete computing systems today (or old, legacy, obsolete software for modern computing systems today), not for the systems themselves. Is this the right place to ask? What are your thoughts about this? JIP | Talk 19:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. A list could potentially be made of "Systems often used by retro-computing-people" or something like that, with sources attached, but tagging an old computer system with "retrocomputing" as a category doesn't work IMHO.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Good, thanks. I'll allow more time for discussion, and if a consensus is reached that the category is improperly applied, I'll start removing the category links from the computer articles. JIP | Talk 20:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Having had no other replies for two days, I went out and removed the category "Retrocomputing" for all articles not specifically about retrocomputing, i.e. running software on legacy hardware today. Legacy hardware itself doesn't count as "retrocomputing". JIP | Talk 20:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Image question

Have a look at this image I added to the article Emulator. It's a screenshot of a modern Fedora PC running UAE, which in turn is running Wzonka-Lad, which in turn is running Tetris. I have lately started to feel that the image doesn't really show off nested emulation that much. The reason is that the emulated AmigaOS desktop occupies less than one-fifth of the real Linux desktop (although the Game Boy screen occupies almost a third of the AmigaOS desktop). This is particularly problematic in the thumbnail. What are your opinions? I haven't found a way in E-UAE to make the emulated pixels double-size (or quadruple-size in fact, as it's a two-dimensional image), so should I crop the picture to better show off the AmigaOS desktop? JIP | Talk 19:53, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there's room for improvement in that image. In the context of the article with other screenshots, I think it is still useful. The AmigaOS window is probably small because it is a lower-resolution display. If you want to balance it out better, you will need to retake it using a lower display resolution setting for the host system.

Also, why not discuss this on the Emulator talk page? ~KvnG 15:29, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Tense for older Internet Explorer software articles?

Articles for older versions of Internet Explorer, such as Internet Explorer 5, Internet Explorer 3 and Internet Explorer 2, refer to the browser in past tense: "...was a graphical web browser". My question is: Should software no longer officially supported or downloadable be referred to in past or present tense? Heymid (contribs) 22:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

• In my opinion, no, it should not. Software doesn't just vanish off the Earth when it becomes no longer supported or downloadable. JIP | Talk 11:04, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

At some point we do use past tense. For instance, MS-DOS is discussed in the present tense but 86-DOS is in past tense. I don't know that there's a clean rule for knowing where that point is. ~KvnG 15:51, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Focused Project (Proposal) for Cloud Computing

A new project proposal has been created for Cloud Computing; in addition to bringing the Proposal here to the larger WikiProject Computing group, I would love feedback and opinion from the group as to the viability of such a (new) Project. In my opinion the massive topic of Cloud Computing requires larger focus and organization by a committed set of editors beyond just a Task Force within "Computing" but admittedly I am a "WikiNewbie" - thoughts and opinion appreciated! JohnWooten (talk) 12:55, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I would support and participate in a cloud computing task force. I don't think a new WikiProject on this is warranted. ~KvnG 14:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

{{JavaScript}}

Template:JavaScript (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been proposed to be renamed, see template talk:JavaScript -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Mac Pro GAR

Mac Pro, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Someone not using his real name (talk) 23:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

"Comparison of..."

I see we have numerous list articles that are not properly titled in my opinion. Take for example Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units. It's lead only says "This page contains general information about Nvidia's GPUs and videocards based on official Nvidia specifications." That's not really an explicit comparison is it? Sure the reader can compare them after looking at the specs, but that's not the same as Wikipedia providing some comparison. I'm guessing such pages were titled "comparison" because there is this typical web convention out there that putting products in a table is more or less comparison, e.g. the http://ark.intel.com database allows the user to select multiple similar products it will provide a comparison by diffing the spec tables (i.e. it highlights what's different) (See example). But Wikipedia "comparison" lists don't really provide such a service, they're really: here's a [big] list/database of products together with their main specs (which you can use to compare individual items yourself if you want to and are prepared to do some footwork of your own). So I think all of these should renamed to just "List of ..." I'll add some move requests to the affected articles with pointers to this centralized discussion shortly. Someone not using his real name (talk) 16:30, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• Move-requested: Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units, Comparison of AMD graphics processing units, Comparison of Intel graphics processing units. More to come. Someone not using his real name (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Popping over from the WikiProject Lists. I've never seen these "comparison" lists until know. I don't see any reason they shouldn't use the more standard "List of..." title. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 22:36, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• Procedural NOTICE discussion spread over 4 talk pages. If you want a multimove discussion, please use the appropriate template and close the 3 separate discussions on the article talkpages, if you want separate discussions, please close your centralized discussion -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:56, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
• I've moved all three of these, as there were no substantial objections to the moves in any of these discussions. You may treat the others as uncontroversial. The IP is correct, however, that the best approach would have been to simply make a multimove and notify WikiProjects of that discussion. --BDD (talk) 18:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Framework Benchmarks

Seems like the comparison article on web frameworks should include information from here:

http://www.infoworld.com/t/java-programming/surprise-java-fastest-server-side-web-apps-230565

and the related:

http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/

It's not as comprehensive as the current Wikipedia articles, but the results are pretty remarkable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.225.116 (talk) 15:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

qgs

Would somebody care to write a page about the *.qgs file format used by QGIS. I would be interested in what is hidden in that file and I can't find any information anywhere. There are similar pages for Shapefile, which is used by a few GIS programs. --Tobias1984 (talk) 17:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Information on this file format is hard to find. There is a dtd that may or may not be current and gives the XML structure, but for the full semantics of the elements and attributes, one probably needs to browse the source. But for the purposes of a WP article or a section in QGIS, these are both primary sources (no pun intended) and if using them one would need to be careful about original research. --Mark viking (talk) 18:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I also couldn't find any easily digestible information. I will just wait until somebody makes a blog post or something. --Tobias1984 (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata

We just started a new project over at Wikidata: d:Wikidata:WikiProject Informatics. I hope some of you will take the time to visit or participate! For those of you that haven't heard: We are trying to centralize data about everything that is on Wikipedia. That way all languages benefit from accurate information and we can provide dynamic pages based on what the user is interested in (e.g. List of all CPUs build between 1991 and 1993) --Tobias1984 (talk) 19:50, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Review of Article Rating

Hey Folks,

I don't if this is the right place, but since we reworked the Article for OpenMediaVault I think its time to rethink the rating. Where do I request that the rating is checked again? As of now its only rated start-class which clearly shouldn't be anymore since the rewrite. --Davidh2k (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Either here or at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Computing/Assessment is fine. I've taken a look and found that the article doesn't clearly make a C grade. I've added a couple tags suggesting improvements. ~KvnG 15:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Heise just broke all links to h-online.com - link archive.org versions as archiveurl=

Heise just took down the H Online archive (the English-language version of Heise). This has broken a pile of reference links. I've just fixed OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice, about to fix Apache OpenOffice ... This is the search for links there's thirty-odd. This does NOT cover links inside reference templates ... may have to go through Google.

Thankfully most seem to be on archive.org. I'll start, but if others can dive in then that would be most helpful - David Gerard (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

As I expected, a HUGE number in references: Google for site:en.wikipedia.org+link:h-online.com. Argh. Are there tools for this job? - David Gerard (talk) 00:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Er, this link is a little less scary, 131 results: [1]. I'm going through these ... slowly and tediously ... To fix {{cite web}}, you need to add archiveurl= and archivedate= - don't forget to preview - David Gerard (talk) 00:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, think I've got all the links in main article space - David Gerard (talk) 13:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

... and evidently I didn't get them all, as I've found more since. Can anyone think of a search (on Wikipedia or an external search engine) that will reveal links the above searches didn't? - David Gerard (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface currently covers RT1 and Pro1 (mostly just RT1), but we have separate articles for Surface 2 (RT2) and Surface Pro 2. Shouldn't these all exist in the series article, Microsoft Surface, or should RT1 and Pro1 be split off into separate articles? -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)