Talk:APL (programming language)/Archive 4

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Question

"It is solution focused, emphasizing the expression of algorithms independently of machine architecture or operating system." Is this not true of Fortran, C, C++, Perl, Ruby, Pascal, PROLOG, Forth, SmallTalk, Java, and many, many others? Leegee23 (talk) 08:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

HTML tag stripping example

It is well known that stripping HTML tags is not a simple task: you can't even do it reliably with a regular expression, or regex, due to some complex HTML constructions that might appear. Therefore, despite not knowing APL, I very much doubt that the example given in the article is reliable. 86.185.137.150 (talk) 01:13, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Redirection Dyalog -> APL

I think it is wrong that there is a redirection from Dyalog to APL.

APL is a programming Language. Dyalog is a private for-profit company. I intend to delete that redirection. Any objections?

Jarl (talk) 08:05, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Criticism

Could somebody summarise http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/11589341 and thus provide a Criticism section on APL again? It was cut off due to poor content a long time ago, but the "Criticism of APL" still links here! Vaxquis (talk) 12:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion of maintenance templates and some wikilinks in the article

LongTermWikiUser, I reverted your edit to the article because:

• I thought that the maintenance boxes (which I had added) belonged on the article. I noticed a large number of external links in the running prose of the article, which, if they even belong in the article, should be in the External links section; thus the external links maintenance notice. Also, I initially put the tone maintenance box on the article because while reading the article, it looked to me like it went into a lot of detail that wasn't strictly needed. Upon reflection, {{Overly detailed}} may be a better fit for this purpose.
• I thought that the wikilinks you removed deserved to stay on the article, as I felt that they were necessary for readers' understanding of the article.

Hope this makes sense! APerson (talk!) 01:28, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi APerson. This is LongTermWikiUser.

Unfortunately, I disagree entirely with your inclusion of both maintenance boxes. The embedded hyperlinks you obliquely seem to question provide quick access to external information which is of interest to interested readers. They do not belong in the external links section, in this person's view. I am a long-term user of Wikipedia, in excess of 15 years or so and imbedded hyperlinks are extraordinarily common, not just on Wikipedia but the web generally. Why do hyperlinks, underscored links, belong local? Putting such hyperlinks in an External Links section distances the ability to quickly click-on a topic of interest and such a "distanced" format results in links that less-frequently get visited by readers of Wikipedia, in my view and as a long-term user.

In terms of too much detail in the APL programming article, please forgive me, but that's narrow minded and a less than knowledge-based perspective. Encyclopedias are designed to have a plethora of information, at one's fingertips, in detail, the more the better, while keeping a broad perspective. Less detailed information results in a shallowness of content, and a less-educated readership after leaving the Wikipedia page, in this user's view. If there is a problem, perhaps it is a lack of effective mechanism for Wikipedia readers/users to click-expand and click-compress sub-topics such as is found in tree node structures, like "+" would click-expand to view and "-" would click-contract to hide. Since Wikipedia's functionality or lack thereof is outside this user's control, it is a moot point. The point remains, less detail results in shallowness of content.

If there are any sub-topics which you find less than interesting, there are ways to make them more appealing.

Thank you for taking the time to present your view and comment. Out of respect for you and your perspective, I am not reverting your edit, for the time being. I am not in any hurry to counter-edit, nor passionately same-day revert your edit. It would appear we fundamentally disagree. I remain unconvinced of your position, your perspective.

LongTermWikiUser (talk) 04:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser I call bullshit striaghtaway. If you are going to claim to be a long-term user, at least research your facts first before claiming a figure like that. A few seconds could save you a lot of embarrassment. Also, in response to above, Wikipedia:NOTHOW Mdann52 (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser, I'm unable to see the reason why you believe this page should be excluded from WP:ELCITE, which states that [i]f an article has external links, the standard format is to place them in a bulleted list under a primary heading at the end of the article. Since the page doesn't follow that guideline, the maintenance box is appropriate. If you feel like embedded hyperlinks are so important, I can't see why you removed 11 of them. [N]arrow minded and a less than knowledge-based perspective? WP:NPA, please. [T]he more the better? That's in direct contravention of WP:SS, which this article really needs to follow, and which indeed states that [t]he parent article should have general summary information and the more detailed summaries of each subtopic should be in child articles and in articles on specific subjects (to quote WP:DETAIL). I stand by the addition of the maintenance boxes (having just swapped one of them out; I can remove the external links myself) and hope to see the article be as close to brilliant prose as it can be. APerson (talk!) 18:34, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi APerson. This is LongTermWikiUser, again. Best regards to you. Thank you for removing one of the boxes you placed on the page previously. You at least appear open to compromise, although you exhibit a tendency to cite Wikipedia rules instead of fundamental thoughts re editing.

• As someone who visits the APL Programming page and keeps somewhat in touch with its content thank you, sincerely - for both your thoughts as well as removing at least one box. One of the best English professors I had, when questioned about how long something should be, remarked, "Well, how long is a string?" The long and short of it is that sometimes more is better and sometimes less is better.
• My personal view is that a lot of people before me have contributed greatly, significantly, in terms of content and style, to the web page now marked up and the time each of them donated to Wikipedia (NONE of us gets a dime for our work, including the time taken to find relevant links as well as embed them) as well as the topic APL itself should not be tread lightly upon, as any good topic in which at least some people take an interest; hence I have a great reluctance to delete anything on the page, nor substantially move things around. For me and the persons who have contributed the content before me, it is sacrosanct content. To you and at least one other, such is not the case. I don't own the content, the original contributors don't either - but they and I believe it represents very good, if not excellent content.
• The web page is getting something 'on or near' 500 web hits per day, so it cannot be too uninteresting, nor appeal to - too limited a readership, yet your flag reads, "This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience." For this Wikipedia APL reader ONLY, moving something such as the APL History section to another Wikipedia webpage, would not be viewed unfavorably. Out of respect to the APL contributors before me, I will NOT move ANY content OFF its CURRENT page. Brilliant prose is frequently a matter of individual opinion and personal style, but not beyond the realm of practical achievement.

APerson, do you or have you ever used APL? If you are going to edit the APL page, surely you should know something about APL, its history, how at least a taste or flavor of APL works, and visit some of the embedded hyperlinks on the webpage?

In any event, again, thank you for your interest. APL itself allows plenty of room for boolean, aka contrarian views.

LongTermWikiUser (talk) 09:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I still don't get why you removed seemingly valid Wikilinks, and you still haven't addressed the point above where you claimed you had impossibly long service.... Mdann52 (talk) 10:25, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Mdann52. LongTermWikiUser, here. The links were originally removed in an attempt to comply with APerson's original edit, unsuccessfully, in your and APerson's view. Whether or not you choose to believe this person has long-term experience with Wikipedia, is entirely up to you; but this user has used Wikipedia since close to day or at least year one of its existence. The original Wikipedia guideline you posted in this talk area does indeed represent helpful guideposts. Technical topics, such as a programming language, including its background, may seem immensely boring to some people, overly long and include details some persons would better wish were not present or even in existence - this is understandable, yet unavoidable perhaps? We should all consider ourselves fortunate that the original creators of the APL page donated their time to elucidate the topic - since it conveys knowledge, whether you/me/anyone finds it boring or not. Knowledge is useful; deleting knowledge is not in humanity's best interests, not in students best interests, nor in Wikipedia's/its readership's best interest. Beware the edit deletion which thereby erases knowledge - it may be gone from posterity for good. If I recall correctly, my original 'edit modifications' merely deleted several low-information-level-background Wikipedia internal links, yet NOT the words shown - again, in an attempt to comply with APerson's generalized, original Wiki-boxes and abbreviated comments (as available at that time). Best regards Mdann52, LongTermWikiUser (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser, just popping in to say that the maintenance box I added did not mean that wikilinks should be removed. If I'm interpreting your actions correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong) it looks like you're missing the distinction between wikilinks (between Wikipedia articles) and external links (to other Internet pages). The maintenance box I added, {{external links}}, talks exclusively about the latter type of links. In the first edit you made following my series of edits, you exclusively removed the former type of links. You described this removal as delet[ing] several low-information-level-background Wikipedia internal links, but I believe, as I initially stated, that the presence of such links is important for reader understanding and integration into the rest of Wikipedia. APerson (talk!) 03:03, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

APerson The issue of internal vs. external links was previously clarified, well before your most recent note, just above. You've still failed to address the bulk of my prior comments in this talk area, deliberately or unintentionally, my logic indicating that NO flag boxes seem necessary. APerson, have you read any of my responses in this talk page? Although making replies, you have not recognized any specifics written by this user in this talk area. The APL Programming wikipedia article is receiving some 400-500 web hits per day, which Wikipedia and you should be grateful for, so the article is not too long for at least X% of its daily visitors. Further, as a technical topic, the current APL Programming topic length may even be too short. Not all persons fit in a size 8 or even size 10-12 shoe, ditto for N bytes in a technical topic. Perhaps the Externals Links section should be merged in with the rest of the article? If I were a Student researching APL to learn about the topic or write a paper on it, I should much rather be able to take a large volume of subject matter from a Wikipedia article than possess only half its current content and be required to perform significant additional research elsewhere. You fail to acknowledge any gratitude, for instance, to the entirely unpaid contributors of existing content to the article, including both its present-existing style and cumulative time taken to generate such existing content. Best regards, we still apparently fundamentally disagree. LongTermWikiUser (talk) 23:58, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Link inclusion

LongTermWikiUser, you've added a bunch of external links in running prose, which I then reverted. To use some shorthand: BRD. I really thought we had established above that external links (as opposed to wikilinks) do not belong in running prose. (I started a new subsection since this is a different issue than what looks like a content discussion above.) APerson (talk!) 02:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

APerson, I do not believe in any way, shape or form your supposition "we have established external links belong in an External Links section" and not embedded within encyclopedic text itself. You apparently missed several of my earlier comments, deliberately or inadvertently:

• Beware the edit deletion which thereby erases knowledge - it may be gone from posterity for good. Apparently several former Wikipedia pages have at present been deleted - hence such former Wikipedia internal links cannot be relied upon (they now appear in RED in the APL Wikipedia article) - thus the necessity of now - creating external links since Wikipedia itself cannot be relied upon for factual information, missing inesse notitia in Latin. What, Internal Wikipedia Links in running prose are "correct, even encouraged" yet embedded External Web links are "frowned upon?" External Links must be "once removed" or "distanced" from source prose?
• As someone who possesses a profound respect for Wikipedia, please forgive me but - the subordination of External Links through physical content separation itself i.e. removal from direct prose discussion/removal as direct linking re a sub-topic - sounds unfortunately "pompous" since Wikipedia sees fit to delete formerly valid internal links, apparently, at will.
• External Links re a Wikipedia article receive less readership viewing than the original text itself, hence the validity for embedded or inline direct linking, a fundamental hypertext Internet objective since day one of hypertext's existence.

APerson, I do not necessarily disagree with including an External Links section in a Wikipedia section since such a section usually has useful auxiliary/additional sources of information - even if such a section is significantly less well read than the main article. However, from a readership perspective and from a "new age" encyclopedic perspective I find the distancing of external linking capability to be fundamentally at odds with "ease of use" by Internet/Wikipedia readers. Further, since Wikipedia is apparently deleting history, i.e. deleting formerly valid internal links - the policy of encouraging internal links while discouraging direct external links - is fundamentally at odds with readership efficiency. Why go to the index(External Links) section of an article, when visiting a direct inline external link is so easy? Again, this is a developmental, guiding principle behind hypertext and the Internet itself.

I am not reverting your edit in order to better understand what you think and what your perceptions, perspectives are. Best regards, LongTermWikiUser (talk) 23:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser, I'm just going to say that this distancing of external links from the main body is the convention in almost all of the 4.7 million other articles here (and certainly every last one of the ones I've seen). It's also enshrined in the content guideline WP:EL, specifically the the part that talks about where external links should go. That guideline, in turn, points us to WP:ELLAYOUT: (referring to external links) These hyperlinks should not appear in the article's body text. (Perhaps I've been a little late here in bringing in references to official Wikipedia guidelines, but both of us (you being a long-time editor here, apparently) should already be aware of them.) To respond to a few of your points:

• such... Wikipedia internal links cannot be relied upon - in fact, part of the reason internal links are given "preferential treatment" in articles is because they are more reliable than external links. Considerable effort is put into making sure that we aren't giving readers out-of-date external links. Redlinks, in the right places, are actually preferred as they help to grow the project.
• that we prefer internal links over external ones is pompous because we delete internal links at will - we don't delete pages at will, we delete them for a good reason.
• embedded or inline direct linking, a fundamental hypertext Internet objective since day one of hypertext's existence - If I understand you correctly, you're saying that hyperlinks are a fundamental part of the Internet. I completely agree, and they're even more important on this website in particular because of how they integrate pages into the rest of the encyclopedia. For the reasons I hope I've made clear above, internal links are preferred more than external links for this purpose.

I hope I've made my reasons for why I prefer the article's links as they are now clear, and I hope we can arrive at a consensus quickly. APerson (talk!) 03:30, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

APerson, There are presently nine or so redlinks in the APL Programming article. Roughly 60 days or so ago, all of those redlinks pointed to valid internal Wikipedia web pages. Today none of them exist in Wikipedia. If Wikipedia sees fit to delete nine of its web pages for "good reason" as you so assuredly indicate and those internal web pages are utterly gone, what are you expecting, that someone should immediately re-create new Wikipedia web-pages under those identical Wikipedia monikers, with perhaps the same text as was in them when Wikipedia deleted them? Deleting nine former valid Wikipedia web pages makes internal Wikipedia sources more reliable? You talk about integrating web pages, yet Wikipedia is apparently dis-integrating web pages. It wasn't just one or two Wikipedia web pages, it was nine. And you've completely glossed over the inconvenience to Wikipedia's readership at having to go to the External Links section instead of simply clicking on an external link. LongTermWikiUser (talk) 04:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

This discussion strikes me as very odd. The argument that LongTermWikiUser seems to be making is that external links are preferable to internal Wikipedia links because they are more stable and reliable. I do not have any idea where that claim comes from or what it's grounded in. Certainly Wikipedia has more control over its internal pages: while Wikipedia articles might get deleted or rearranged, they can also be undeleted and reverted. There is no such guarantee for external links. All in all, there does not seem to be any reason here to believe that the APL (programming language) article should be an exception to the well-established WP:External links guideline. External links should remain in their own section whenever possible. —Tim Pierce (talk) 02:32, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Tim Pierce Nothing odd about it at all. Wikipedia deleted some NINE internal web page links hence they are now red-line links in the article. External links have to be used in places where Wikipedia obtusely deletes its internal links.LongTermWikiUser (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

@LongTermWikiUser: I see you just re-added the links. Considering that consensus is stacked very much against you here, this is just becoming Disruptive editing. Can I suggest you drop the issue and move on, before you end up blocked? Thanks, Mdann52 (talk) 16:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mdann52: and may I suggest you please consider WHY I find the issue important. I have other pressing aspects of my life that do not allow me the privilege of always responding on Wikipedia immediately. If you might kindly read some of my prior posts. Thank you for your continued interest in APL, including your donated editing time on Wikipedia, LongTermWikiUser (talk) 18:55, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser but external links are subject to exactly the same kind of link rot and disappear without warning. The difference is that deleted pages on Wikipedia can always be undeleted if there's a need to restore the material. That's what makes your approach seem so odd to me. —Tim Pierce (talk) 16:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Tim Pierce Wikipedia deleted nine links, no external links were deleted. The link rot logic fails miserably. Which is more stable? Nine deleted internal Wikipedia links or zero external links? LongTermWikiUser (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is far less stable. There's no doubt about that. But nearly anything deleted or changed on Wikipedia can be reverted. That's the difference. —Tim Pierce (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Tim Pierce, Again Tim Pierce - you are indicating that it is now better to have 9 red-links (i.e. missing and prior Wikipedia web page links) in the APL article that previously pointed to REAL PERSONS, companies and/or other topic areas -- than to have valid external links to those same persons/places/etc. which Wikipedia has deleted? A vacuum of information is preferable to external linking? These are actual people etc. who helped develop, shape, forge, influence or affect - APL in one way or another. Just allow all that to be wiped out of historical records for all-time? No external linking whatsoever? Those missing Wikipedia web pages cannot be reverted because they are gone from Wikipedia, apparently permanently.

The Telegraph, UK 6:18PM BST 06 Aug 2014: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: "History is a human right." LongTermWikiUser (talk) 14:56, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser, I think that it would help me to understand your concerns if I knew which articles had been deleted from Wikipedia. I looked back through some of the history of this article and was unable to find 9 deleted Wikipedia articles linked from this one. There was one link to SAC (programming language) at one point, which had been deleted in 2006 due to copyright violation, but I couldn't find any record of any other articles that had been deleted. Maybe I was looking at the wrong revision. Can you post here the links to the deleted articles that bothered you so much? —Tim Pierce (talk) 15:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Tim Pierce There are 9 or so red-links in the APL programming article. Those red-links represent missing links. LongTermWikiUser (talk) 16:47, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

LongTermWikiUser, those redlinks are missing articles, yes, but they are not articles that have been deleted -- they are articles no one has created yet. Are you under the impression that every redlink is an article that used to be on Wikipedia but has been deleted? —Tim Pierce (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Tim Pierce Assuming for the moment your perspective - that those red-links do NOT represent deleted Wikipedia web pages, but in fact missing and nine-yet-to-be-created Wikipedia pages: What does that tell you or any Wikipedia editor? It tells me that for x months, years, or even a decade or longer - those web pages have not yet been created in Wikipedia. It tells me that it is 4000% easier to create an embedded external link than to create a whole new Wikipedia topic page and then, as a not-so-happy adjunct, have x number of Wikipedia editors start deleting and reverting your information - because it takes time to research and "prose-ify" an entirely new web-page - a large "initial hurdle" to overcome by the "soon to be brow-beaten" page creator. NO APL Programming editors have yet created those missing nine web-pages in x months, years, or more time? OK, again it points to the efficiency of using embedded external links in a Wikipedia article. If you have time to create nine Wikipedia web pages, including all the research and text encyclopedia-cize time involved, please feel free to tackle the "create nine Wikipedia pages task." Again, my point is how helpful and useful external links are and obviously can be. The time savings alone are enormous - and external links are Wikipedia-viewer-friendly, which again points to why the Internet and hyperlinks were created to begin with - to share information without having to re-input everything. Oh yes, and then there are the editors who come around and put flags on an article without doing much or any actual research on the topic itself. Wikipedia apparently has too many editor-chiefs and not enough researchers. Res ipsa loquitur. LongTermWikiUser (talk) 21:32, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Removed section

The following commented-out section used to be hanging around the bottom of the article, called "Actively Evolving":

Since at least August 2014, the language has had an experimental Android smart phone APL version emulating an early APL version 'Watcom APL' which may be downloaded (use Android's Play Store) from GEMESYS Ltd. APL here. You'll also need the APL keyboard by GEMESYS, also on Play Store. GEMESYS has an Android APL2(TryAPL2 app, more powerful than Watcom APL, with nested arrays for example) version which is in very 'preliminary/early design stage' development, but similarly available to beta-test; some very brief/summary, preliminary TryAPL2 Android how-to-use documentation, found here. Also per GEMESYS, WatcomAPL and APL2 for Android are in 'Experimental Stage Development' as of early Jan 2015 (Open Watcom Initiative). Further online instructions for use of Watcom APL and APL2 for Android will be forthcoming, according to GEMESYS. IBM's original documentation manuals for APL, APL2 and OS back in the 1980s were several inches thick, the equivalent of a CD today, ref. IBM's original documentation for APL2, found here.

References

I'll put it here in the hopes that someone could clean it up (for its tutorial-like tone, grammar, and poor referencing) and put it back in the article. APerson (talk!) 14:15, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to include this in the article. WP is not an exhaustive catalog of language implementations, --Macrakis (talk) 22:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Moderated Discussion at Dispute Resolution Noticeboard

Moderated discussion is in progress at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard concerning issues about the article. Please take any issues concerning this article to the noticeboard for the time being, rather than discussing them on this talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:40, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

There was no response from User:LongTermWikiUser about the use of external links. Discussion should resume at this talk page, especially about whether any sections have too much detail. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:28, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Robert McClenon Please forgive me for the apparent lack of response. It is tax time is it not? Please allow people proper time to respond. May we consider the issue re-opened? Thank you, LongTermWikiUser (talk) 19:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

If you, User:LongTermWikiUser, wish to re-open moderated discussion at the dispute resolution noticeboard, you may make such a request to open a new moderated discussion. I will note that the dispute resolution noticeboard is for quick resolution of content disputes, and the other editors did participate in the discussion. However, you might be better off following the advice that I gave in closing the previous thread: file a Request for Comments if you think that there is a specific reason to make an exception in the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)