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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 78.145.121.73 (talk) at 17:34, 4 February 2008 (→‎Branch Table). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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PMRC

Excellent job revising Parents Music Resource Center. The only change I disliked was combining the Senate hearings section by removing the section headings. I found that the third-level headings, which don't break up the page with a horizontal line, made the text easier to read by grouping it into chunks. Additionally, the subheadings allowed readers to go directly to the subheading for a certain person from the table of contents.

Here's the old version for comparison. Thanks, Λυδαcιτγ 01:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There were too many subheadings for the amount of text. If it could be split into two subheadings (supporters and opposers?) it might work, although IMO the whole section reads too much like a boring list, it would be better to summarise the two sides and the outcome rather than just listing who spoke and what they said. Ditto the next section as well: it hardly seems necessary to list every band that mentioned the PMRC, it might be better just to cover 3-4 really notable or interesting ones in more detail (probably the most interesting are the first one to do it, Aerosmith who made a real point (that they weren't mentioned) rather than just swearing, and Rage Against the Machine because their protest was novel). I might have a look at it again if I have time. NicM 14:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]
All right, I split it up into "Supporting witnesses" and "Opposing witnesses". I agree about the Tipper sticker section, and I'll pare it down at some point. Λυδαcιτγ 17:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stop putting irish on UK towns

Stop putting irish on UK towns —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stopirishonukpages (talk • contribs) 14:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Newtownards is both in the UK and on Ireland. Nearly half of the population of Northern Ireland identifies with the Republic of Ireland, everybody born in the province before (IIRC) 2001 is automatically entitled to Irish citizenship as well as British, and Irish is officially recognised as a minority language. Including Irish names on Wikipedia pages for towns on Ireland, north or south, is perfectly appropriate. Unless you can provide a good reason not to? NicM 15:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Apology

My apologies for reverting this edit to Sudo. I had it backwards, my mistake. —Remember the dot (t) 17:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. NicM 17:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Join the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion! : )

Hello! Since you were the person who originally impressed upon me the importance of sources, I thought you might be interested in this. So, here's an official please join the discussion template:

There has been an extensive effort to combine Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research (together with much of Wikipedia:Reliable sources) into a new policy called Wikipedia:Attribution, and its FAQ, WP:ATTFAQ.

Recently, on Wikipedia talk:Attribution and on the Wiki-EN-l mailing list, Jimbo questioned whether the result had adequate consensus, and requested:

You are invited to take part; the community discussion should be as broad as possible. If you wish to invite other experienced and intelligent editors, please use neutral language. This message, for example, is {{ATTCD}}.

— Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 19:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am interested, thanks for letting me know about this. NicM 22:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
: ) Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 00:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Malloc

In your edit summary of Malloc you asked if anyone could read. Actually, the previous editor had vandalized the page by changing malloc to calloc. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk) 11:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it was vandalism, much more likely he or she didn't read the sentence properly before changing the word. This is the second time someone has done this, perhaps the paragraph should be rephrased. NicM 11:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Foresight

Thanks for reducing the screenshot size - i tend to forget how big 300px is since I've been on a widescreen - ElLinuxPenguin 11:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Foresight

Thanks for updating the foresight article to include a caption for the screenshot. ElLinuxPenguin 09:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

setcontext

You are correct that int main(); is not a function prototype in C, but main() doesn't need a prototype. In my opinion, the extra "void" between the parentheses only adds clutter to the code, and is just one more hurdle that has to be jumped by a reader who doesn't know (much) C. For the same reason, I removed the static keyword that had been in front of loop(), since loop() didn't need to be static.

As for putting function names and return types on the same line: that's just normal practice, and again, doing it differently serves no purpose except to confuse non-experts. The usual reason to put a function name on its own line is so that you can find it with grep ^foo when it's part of a large project; but that reason clearly doesn't apply here, to this tiny sample.

Maybe the typedef doesn't help; I won't revert it again if you still think it's a bad idea. My thought was, again, "Think of the newbies!" (void (*)(void)) is highly confusing (as is (void (*)()), my preferred syntax), because it bears no resemblance to the syntax of any other programming language (C++ excepted). I think that it helps to give that type a name that indicates that it's a function type, and simplifies the cast syntax to (type-name) at the same time.

You may be interested in browsing Category:Articles with example C code to see how other articles' example code is formatted, if you haven't already. Have a nice day! --Quuxplusone 17:00, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand, "int main()", is not a valid function definition (ie, not a valid prototype) for main (at least in C99), the choices are either "int main(void)" or "int main(int argc, char **argv)" (or *argv[]). "()" is not the same as "(void)". And if it was, I could equally argue that missing the void out (making it implicit) was confusing to some. Putting functions types and return values on the same line is not really normal practice, it is a style choice, and changing it is an unnecessary change, although it is probably more common so I don't really mind it so much. The typedef really doesn't help, it just moves the potential confusion around and adds yet another piece of additional terminology (typedef), better a nice comment above the line explaining the cast is unimportant but required by C syntax. I'm not even sure if the cast is necessary, although compilers may warn if it is omitted.
This example is (perhaps of necessity) long and involved, I don't think any of these changes make any difference to its comprehension to C newbies or non-C programmers, and if it does, it really depends on what style they prefer. There is a mixture of example code format on Wikipedia and so long as articles are consistent within themselves I don't think they need to be conistent with other articles (like spelling). NicM 17:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]
On looking again, I think I am wrong and main is special with regard to "()" ("main()" is permitted even though it is not equivalent to "main(void)"). Even so, I think it is inconsistent and I don't see it as less confusing, so I still reckon leave it as it is. NicM 18:00, 22 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Yeah, I'm wrong, the function definitions are equivalent and so it's fine. My bad, sorry. I'd still prefer to leave it though, it was the existing style and most everyone does include the void these days. NicM 18:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]
The example as a whole is too long, I'm leaning towards the notion that the article would be better without it. Example code is easy to find for any function, we don't need to fill half an article with it. The man page linked to already has example code anyway. What do you think? NicM 18:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I think examples are nice, but definitely this example is too long. I'd like to see a shorter version of this example, with fewer lines of code. IMHO it would also help to get rid of some of the inline comments in favor of longer, more grammatical explanations after the example, in the text of the article itself. --Quuxplusone 18:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, a longer prose explanation would be good, although it has the disadvantage that it is further away from the code (use of "/* (1) */" "/* (2) */" can help with that though). Just so long as the code is explained somewhere. Removing the comments and merging a few lines makes the code take about 3/4 of a page at 1280x960 which still seems a bit much, not sure what else could be trimmed though. NicM 19:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

de Raadt

Please stop changing Theo de Raadt. It may be incorrect in Dutch, but this is the English WP and either style is acceptable in English, so there is no need to make this unnecessary change. NicM 11:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Hi there, I think that there is a misunderstanding here. The issue is not the fact that this is the English Wikipedia; I'm fully aware of that. :) However, De Raadt's name is Dutch, regardless of his nationality. There are many South Africans with Dutch names due to its past. Afrikaans is actually essentially a slightly old form of Dutch. Names in South Africa that are of Dutch origin, such as De Raadt's, are spelled in a certain way that may be a bit confusing or awkward to people unfamiliar with it. You can find examples of this at Dutch_name#Tussenvoegsels (the "de" part of his name is called a "tussenvoegsel", and this is the part I'm talking about). The only exception is when people explicitly change their name to use the "tussenvoegsels" as middle names, but this is uncommon and I have not been able to find any indication that this is what De Raadt did.
Therefore, I would like to keep the version that I created, because it is simply the way that Dutch names are spelled, regardless of the language that's used. If you have any questions about this rule (which I can understand, since it's completely foreign in English), please let me know. :) —msikma (user, talk) 12:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understand that it is in the rule in Dutch, but I don't think it applies equally when writing English. I looked at this before, and couldn't find anything conclusive. For "de Raadt". a quick survey of interviews and articles with him are pretty inconclusive: Linux.com[1] and Peter Wayner[2] and some others[3][4] use "de Raadt", but the weighty Forbes[5] uses "De Raadt." The few style guides I found online are a little vague too, some of them don't mention it, some of them mutter about South African names and other exceptions. I'm pretty sure either is acceptable, in which case I don't see a huge reason to change (unless WP has a policy on this, but I can't find one :-/). NicM 12:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, it's unfortunate that WP doesn't have some kind of policy on this. It should. I still think that my explanation is correct, though. While De Raadt himself is a South African, he is also of Dutch descent, judging by his name. The name itself is a typical Dutch name, and the rule for Dutch names is as I have explained it. I believe that these rules are used in English by default when there is nothing in English that overrides it. In that sense, it would be similar to the plural of Tortellino, which is Tortellini, rather than "tortellinos".
Anyway, instead of guessing away, I'll just try to find whatever I can to see if there is some kind of rule that supports either of our arguments. :) —msikma (user, talk) 12:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, there was a discussion about this on the talk page of Talk:Van_(Dutch). Ironically, the article itself mentions absolutely nothing about capitalizing it such as "De Raadt", while on the talk page, a strong case is made for this version. Specifically, the Greek Booklet is mentioned as a source that explicitly states that a so-called "tussenvoegsel", such as "de" or "den" or "van", is capitalized when it is not preceded by a name or initial. The Greek Booklet is the official guide to writing Dutch, and it is published by the Dutch Language Union. —msikma (user, talk) 13:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, perhaps it is true that these rules should be used in English too, but to me it looks very odd and it certainly seems that lots of others use the current form (don't capitalise except at the start of a sentence) when writing English. Most people would instinctively do it that way. English does tend to be defined by how it is used, but maybe there is an absolute rule (Oxford Style Manual?). NicM 15:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]
I just did a search for "manual of style dutch name" and found this: The Chicago Manual of Style Online 8.13: Dutch names (you need to register to see the contents, but you don't need to verify your e-mail address). What it states, though, is that the Dutch rule should be maintained in English when using Dutch names. —msikma (user, talk) 06:12, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that is at least one firm indication on one side or the other. Although it remains that lots of people do seem to do it a different way, and the Dutch way looks very odd and unintuitive to native English speakers, although that isn't a great reason not to do it.
I really don't know now; I have access to a lot of stuff through the open university library but couldn't find anything useful, so we really have only one link. With sorting (Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Ordering names in a category), the general thrust seems to be to follow the foreign language conventions although some of it seems a bit of a fudge ("Dutch/Flemish/Belgian/South African names are especially unpredictable." Heh.); there have been discussions on sorting all over the place, although mostly about "van" (1 2). However, there is evidence that lots of writers don't follow the Dutch convention for names in English text—although they could of course all be wrong. It is certainly unintuitive to native speakers, but I don't think that is a good reason to stick with the current form if it is actually incorrect. I'm a bit surprised there is nothing at all in the MoS about names, although I suppose this doesn't come up all that often. It may be worth bringing up somewhere else... not sure where (one of the MoS talk pages?), but at least to have more people's opinions on whether the English for it really is acceptable or definitely a no-no. NicM 12:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Well, to me personally, the Chicago Manual of Style stating that this is correct is definitive. In Dutch, one also always keeps parts of the foreign grammar when using foreign words. Some reputable sources that I've read use the Dutch way of spelling names, since that's really just the way they're meant to be written. Yes, lots of people don't use the right style; I've seen some Dutch people do it wrongly as well. However, to me it matters that all sources that I've found so far that explicitly try to explain the issue will use the Dutch form. The Chicago Manual of Style does. The Forbes article that you linked to did. There's a blog about the English language that writes: "This is a Dutch name, not an English name, but the Dutch writing system doesn't use any characters that aren't found in English. Should I "transliterate" Harry van der Hulst to *Harry Van Der Hulst if I'm writing about him in English? Nonsense! I should spell his name the way he does, and if I don't, then he has every right to correct me. He should correct me gently, because I am contending with an unfamiliar spelling, but if I insist that I have a right to capitalize him against his will and custom, would he not have a "legitimate grievance"?" [6]. Truth is, I haven't found that many style guides that explicitly specify this rule (although I've found plenty of reputable sites and sources that use it properly), but I've not found one single style guide claiming the contrary to be true. As such, I'll bring this up at the village pump first (there's probably more activity there than on the MoS pages). —msikma (user, talk) 06:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really convinced by the general he's-Dutch-and-it's-the-way-they-do-it argument, there are lots of names that are formatted or spelt differently in different languages (Londres vs London, for example, and Irish and Russian names are frequently reformatted and have spelling changed to English equivalents or to fit into the Roman alphabet). We aren't talking about changing the spelling of his actual name, merely the formatting style when the surname stands alone. I do agree the lack of style guides and newspapers/journals which use the English form is very indicative (the BBC does it too, and although I couldn't find many using "de", something like http://news.google.co.uk/news?&q=%22van%20Nistelrooy%22 is also heavily on the side of using the Dutch form), so I think you are right that it is the technically correct choice at the moment. I'm not wholly convinced the other way is actually incorrect: as lots of people do use it, it is at least de facto acceptable... style guides, dictionaries and suchlike do very often lag some way behind actual real-life English usage; the language is largely defined by how it is used, there is no central "authority" like the Académie française. In any case, since I agree it is technically correct and it is most likely better to be so in an encylopedia, if nobody at the village pump comes up with any objections, we might as well change it. OpenBSD needs to change too. NicM 09:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]
To continue the discussion, I've started a new topic in the Village Pump. Hopefully we'll get some clarity then. :) —msikma (user, talk) 13:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll to merge "Alternative terms for free software" to "Free and open source software"

Can you please comment at Talk:Alternative_terms_for_free_software#Survey. Thanks. --Karnesky (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Branch Table

I only recently noticed that you had removed an IBM Assembler example of Branch table "because you didn't understand the code" and thought it didn't add anything (if you couldn't understand it, how would you know?).

Not understanding the code is presumably because you don't know IBM assembler language. This is hardly a valid reason for deletion. I don't know C too well, but I don't go around deleting examples of that on Wikipedia.

The example was demonstrating just how few machine instructions were required to achieve a considerable amount of processing in a very neat way that was aided by the Assembler to reduce errors.

Compiled languages don't illustrate this too well because the function calls often involve additional (hidden) processing such as push/pop of stacks that actually consume considerable CPU cycles themselves. Kdakin3420 (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at my example again today, I fail to see how you cannot understand it - since there are essentially only 5 Assember/machine instructions in it! The rest are either labels or simple data definitions, neither of which require much brainpower to understand. Not only that but each of the 5 instructions carry with them a clear and precise comment, on the same line, illustrating just what each instruction does (lacking in the C example) for the uninitiated.

My 2nd example illustrated a 2nd method of using 'branch tables' with a greater range of branching (64K compared to 4K) with half the memory usage in table size (2 bytes per entry instead of 4 bytes).Actually it allows a branch range of 256K if the labels are forced to be on a word boundary - which is accomplished by the Assembler very simply.

"Thrown out with the bathwater" was also a significant comment on compression of raw data to coded values (3 byte colour code representing 16 million colours). Also thrown out was the fact that indexed values can be used as record numbers for retrieval from a file instead of using a "key" which requires search/lookup. Kdakin3420 (talk) 05:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My comment was, in fact, "i barely understand that code from the explanation and it doesn't seem to add anything substantial so rm it". You seem to have overlooked the second part of that comment. The code was:
  • extremely long (more than 3/4 of the article!). essentially five instructions is no good when it needs 29 lines of support
  • poorly commented
  • poorly explained in the text
  • did not substantially add anything to the article that a short, well commented example, such as the one I added, did not

Wikipedia is not a code repository, examples should be short, clear and to the point. Remember that most readers are not even programmers let along assembly programmers or IBM assembly programmers! I don't think we need extra examples to illustrate different types of branch tables, a simple note in the text somewhere would be sufficient, if it is a common or very different use—which the second example wasn't: we don't need to include things just because they are clever or efficient, Wikipedia is not a code implementation guide. The last history paragraph did not even mention the words "branch table"—there is no requirement that raw data be used to index into branch tables, it can as you say be used to index into files, but what does that have to do with branch tables? This article is about the assembly construct, it is not a general article on raw data or indexing. Someone has now added another big history section that is a bit more to the point but could do with a good tidy up (for a start, it doesn't include much actual history). Maybe you could look at this, but bear in mind the article is specifically about branch tables. Information just about other things (even if they are related) like indexing into files, or general coding of raw data, is not relevent. NicM (talk) 08:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC).[reply]

I totally disagree with what you are saying here:-
  • 1. Since the article is about branch tables, it follows that only people who understand Assembler level code would be interested.
  • 2. For the same reason, code examples for more than one single platform are useful
  • 3. It should be pointed out that the same technique , once learned, can be extremely useful in other instances.
  • 4. I do not believe I said that only raw data need be "input" to branch tables as you implied
  • 5. The second example (which had no earlier example code of yours) showed use of offsets rather than a branch table per se - but it is the same technique nevertheless and overcomes the limitations of a pure branch table in that a much larger range of code can be "branched to".
  • 6. I am incredulous that you say my code was poorly commented!
  • 7. Your comment "5 instructions no good when needs 29 other to support them" shows that you do not understand how to make Assembler that is self "correcting" (i.e. finds its own mistakes) and anyway most of the other (so called) "instructions" would be there anyway (labels, data definitions, branch instructions etc). See point 9 also on limitations with your example which didn't show how to construct the index and validate it at the same time (with a single instruction in my example!).
  • 8. The point about branch table indexes being useful after having being utilized for the indexed branch was, I believe, worthwhile and may not be fully appreciated by many programmers.
  • 9. Your example does not validate the data at the same time as converting the raw input to an index

(my Assembler example does this - all in the same 5 instructions!, 4 if you exclude the final branch)

  • 10. Although you (now) mention limitations in some languages, you don't explain why or ways around this problem to enable its use and the limitations of those too, in ANSI C for example.
  • 11. It was I who added the new history section described by you say is "that is a bit more to the point" - that you have now also removed (I forgot to sign before adding it)

Perhaps it is your own lack of understanding that is providing your difficulties Perhaps the changes I made should be left for a while for others to see and debate upon rather than being deleted by you within hours of being posted. Kdakin3420 (talk) 11:45, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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