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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Chuser (talk | contribs) at 06:11, 2 May 2011 (→‎Ch interpreter). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Ch interpreter

AfDs for this article:
Ch interpreter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Relisting per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 April 13. Primary argument for deletion appears to be lack of notability. Procedural nomination only, I am neutral. T. Canens (talk) 05:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- Cybercobra (talk) 07:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. -- Cybercobra (talk) 07:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. To establish notability, WP:GNG and WP:CORPDEPTH ask for multiple, reliable, independent, non-trivial sources. I don't think they're there. The requirement for independence eliminates the papers by Harry Cheng, the creator of Ch, plus those of Matt Campbell and Zhaoqing Wang, both of whom have co-authored papers with Harry Cheng. (In addition, Cheng was the director of the UC Davis Integration Engineering Laboratory where Campbell was a master's candidate.)

    Two more of the sources are also not useful because they're not actually commenting on Ch. Both the Glassborow and the Huber articles are actually book reviews of Cheng's textbook for teaching C. Yes, it apparently comes with a CD containing Ch, but I don't think that's what they were reviewing. I think they were a reviewing a book about how to teach C.

    The independent secondary sources we're left with are the Heller, Gary Wang and Wilson articles. They're weak.

    The Heller article is a First Impression column article, not featured review and it says so. A First Impression is just that; it just came out and here's what it looks like, who knows if it's going anywhere. Furthermore, (from the article on BYTE) BYTE "ceased publication with the July 1998 issue, laid off all the staff and shut down Byte's rather large product-testing lab ... In 1999, CMP revived Byte as a web-only publication", meaning this was a web column, not even a column in print. The Wilson is similar; it's a column mention.

    The Gary Wang article is the weakest of the bunch. It's advertising being passed off as a legitimate review. It cannot plausibly have been peer-reviewed. Yes, it did appear in Spectrum but the whole point of asking for reliable sources should be more than just saying, okay, as long as the article appeared somewhere that usually exercises good editorial control, that's enough. This is an article, that if you simply read it cannot possibly be considered to be reliable and balanced. Characteristic of purely promotional writing, it fails to identify even a single shortcoming or any possible way in which the product might be improved or any purpose for which it wouldn't be absolutely fabulous. It's not surprising to see that SoftIntegration quotes Gary Wang in their press release. What is surprising it that Spectrum would allow this to be printed.

    When I take these very weak sources together with the aggressive history of spamming Wikipedia (e.g., here and in the spammy external links) and Amazon with SPAs, the endless relitigating (we're now into the 4th week of debate on this page!) and the unsavory canvassing, I think the right answer is delete. Msnicki (talk) 07:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • Can you substantiate where papers authored by an interested party, but published by an editorially independent reliable source, are somehow inappropriate? Remember, our guidelines look at who paid for the publication of a paper, not who authored it. Jclemens (talk) 08:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CORPDEPTH Provides the following context for the above quote: "A primary test of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial, non-routine works that focus upon it." Looking at the entire section and the nature opf all the other example given, it is clear what is being prohibited. Guy Macon (talk) 16:34, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:GNG and WP:CORPDEPTH both require that sources used to establish notability must be independent of the subject. They do not say independence is unnecessary just so long as the magazine that published it was independent. The whole thing, starting with the author, has to be independent. Msnicki (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, the above is a overly narrow and legalistic interpretation of WP:CORPDEPTH. The spirit of the policy is clearly explained in WP:CORPDEPTH itself: "Self-promotion and product placement are not routes to qualifying for an encyclopaedia article." Guy Macon (talk) 16:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There are in-depth articles in two top mass-market computing magazines: Byte Magazine (2001), Dr. Dobb's Journal (2004). There are also in-depth articles in less prominent magazines, as well as numerous less focused mentions in top magazines that together span a decade. They are all cited in the article. and together go well above the standard required by GNG.
It is true that peer reviewed research papers do not automatically establish notability if they only come from one small workgroup or a tiny set of collaborators. But we don't even have to examine whether this is the case here. Hans Adler 08:35, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The Heller article is lengthy, substantial, and in a solid publication. The Wilson article also offers expansive coverage of the topic at-hand. Clearly, the Wang article, by nature of its inclusion in an edited publication, is valid. We decry Wiki articles for having peacock terms; we don't generally turn away articles for being based on reliable sources that happen to use what might, in an encyclopedia article, be called peacock terms. It is neither surprising nor relevant that somebody would quote a positive article about their product in their product's marketing materials. Keep. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 09:32, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The above mentioned sources are enough to establish notability. In addition, Mactech has a review, the Ch interpreter is very commonly embedded in LabVIEW, and is sometimes used to program Lego Mindstorms. Guy Macon (talk) 09:54, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Mactech "review" is by Matt Campbell. He is not independent, having co-authored a paper on Ch with Harry Cheng and having received his Masters while studying under Cheng. (Read the bio at the end of the paper.) This is even more blatant than the Spectrum article; they've allowed Campbell to review a product he'd worked on himself! Undoubtedly,It seems likely this was not disclosed. Msnicki (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was about to write that you should not make serious accusations such as "Undoubtedly, this was not disclosed" without actual evidence of wrongdoing, but then I noticed that the Mactech review was published in 2003 while the paper was submitted in 2005 and published in 2006. Not having a time machine or reliable precognition, I think it safe to assume that he didn't disclose something that was several years in the future.
If I review a product on my own webpage, that does not show notability - pretty much every garage band has a website. If I review a product and Mactech or Byte publishes it, the fact that a well-know computer magazine with a large subscription base made the editorial decision to publish a review of the software is, in itself, evidence of prior notability (they don't review products unless they are notable) and also establishes notability (even if it wasn't notable before Mactech or Byte published the review, it became notable at that point). Evidence that the author has a conflict of interest calls the accuracy of the review into question, not the notability of the product reviewed. Unless you have evidence that the creator of the software bribed the editors of Mactech and Byte, you must presume that the decision to publish the review was not made by the author of the review. Guy Macon (talk) 16:24, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The association is not the paper in the future but that at the time he wrote the review, Campbell was working on Ch (as documented in that later paper co-authored with Cheng) while he pursued his masters degree under Cheng. Msnicki (talk) 16:42, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Weak article on a perfectly horrible topic. I ask myself why such a thing existed post 2000, why it was still thought to be a good idea by then (we no longer had the grief of the 1980s), why it was based on C of all things and a comment like, "Students in disciplines other than computer science can just learn C" gives me the crawling horrors. In particular, we seem to have a long article here that still gives a poorer flavour of what it's really about and why it came to be, than the IEEE paper's abstract does.
That all said though, when a product gets in-depth coverage like this at the level of journals like the IEEE Spectrum (and I hope Wtshymanski will accept that Spectrum isn't obscure), then that's notability, as we define it. I don't like it, but I can't give reason to delete it. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:21, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete same reasons as before - WP:RS wants a knowledgeable source, which takes out the Huber source. Other editors appear to be arguing that Wang's close associates and even Cheng's papers constitute sources for the sake of notability. TEDickey (talk) 10:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
From my viewpoint, the Wang paper in IEEE Spectrum is a good ref for notability. Is there a reason why you would discount it? Even if there's a connection between Wang & Cheng, I trust the editors of IEEE Spectrum to publish an article free of any bias to a level that would be a problem for us. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The point was already made in the previous round: a journal will print based on their perceived user-interest (whether novelty or just topicality), will peer-review full articles but not necessarily other content, and bias of the type we're discussing is not a factor in the choice whether to accept or reject. TEDickey (talk) 13:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe we need full-blown peer review just to establish notability. I trust the editors of Spectrum as an adequate delegate for that. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:19, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Seems a very clear-cut case at this point. Collect (talk) 12:59, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The articles about ch have appeared in respected journals. When evaluating articles about little software products we are often struggling to find any coverage at all from a reliable source; this is more than enough. EdJohnston (talk) 13:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Plenty of valid, notability-establishing cites. Wang's connection to Cheng is irrelevant; we're considering IEEE Spectrum, not Wang. The only time the author is the source is in a WP:SPS situation. We also need not rake source citation content over the coals for reasons to disqualify it, like speaking too positively of its topic, that are conjured out of nowhere rather than appearing in policy or guidelines; the question we're asking is whether it provides significant coverage, i.e. enough to provide a meaningful chunk of Wikipedia article content. These conditions are sufficiently met. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I just added additional two independent sources in Ch Interpreter article. One is written by Buff Here which was mentioned in the previous AFD and another is written by Li-rong Wang from Tokyo Inst. of Technology here. The second article is a new article which talks about the application of mobile c based on ch.
In addition, I have two questions and appreciate anybody's comments. One is about Professor Tom Hubber's article in the IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering. TEDickey believes it should be removed from reliable source because the author is not knowledgeable and it was mentioned in every AFD. My comment is that I believe that it is IEEE editors's job to determine if he is knowledgeable about the subject to publish his article. WP:RS states: "Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both." It is "or", not "and". In other words, RS can be established if one of the above two conditions is met. Also from WP:RS, "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources". The IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering is one of the most authoritative academic and peer-reviewed publications. It has been repeated twice already. Can anybody comment if Hubber's article is suitable as RS?
Another question is about the link from Ch shell to C shell. TEDickey and Msnicki think it is a spamming for such a link. C in C shell (csh) means C language. It talks C like language for shell programming. The link [http://www.softintegration.com/docs/ch/shell/ Ch shell (ch) talks the shell programming in C. It is C not something like C. Ch shell use the C language syntax for shell programming. Anybody think it is relevant and shares useful information in wikipedia with such a link? The reason I am asking is that Msnicki mentions it every time in AFD. Thanks. Chuser (talk) 05:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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