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#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science]]
Sounds interesting, but what exactly does it involve? Like, say, deciding on a format for all articles of type "The Foo Programming Language", and then editting them to conform? -- [[User:Khym Chanur|Khym Chanur]] 07:29, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)
How shall we organize them? Each article according to the same format/structure as Khym says, or do you mean some kind of inter-language reference, which would produce a family tree? Do we want to write EBNF for all of them? Create a master list of language features and say which languages have them (Objects, Classes, Recursion, Garbage Collection, etc.)? [[User:Brent Gulanowski|Brent Gulanowski]] 17:24, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
:My original plan was to decide on a format, and apply it to each of the programming language formats. I think Brent's ideas are good too. It is really up to the members of this WikiProject (which can be anyone, just put your name down). We can vote on these ideas here. The names of the wikipedians that I asked to join, I got from here: [[Wikipedia:Wikipedians by fields of interest#Computer Science]]. BTW, Brent, what is EBNF?
:[[User:Noldoaran|—Noldoaran]] [[User talk:Noldoaran|(Talk)]] 00:50, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)
::[[EBNF]] is [[Extended Backus Naur Form]], the standard form for defining a language [[grammar]]. It is an essential component of a language specification. Check out the [http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/jTOC.doc.html Java Language Specification] for a good, if complicated, example. The EBNF comes in handy when writing a compiler. The grammars of most modern programming languages are probably too tedious and long to include in full, but some key productions (aka rules) might be valuable for comparative purposes. So, if one exists, hopefully, as in the Java case, we can just link to it. [[User:Brent Gulanowski|Brent Gulanowski]] 20:18, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
==Some possible sections for a standardized format for programming language articles==
===Language origins===
*creator(s)
*companies involved
*original hardware platform
*original operating system
*original compiler
*precursors/descendents
*dates of major versions
===Language characteristics===
Qualities that do not fall under features.
*compiled, interpreted, or both
*suitable programming tasks: system, web, math, science, education, A.I.
*current usage (users, platforms, implementations)
===Langauge features===
*data types: user-derived, heterogeneous, templates, classes
*modularization: sub-routines, procedures, functions, methods
*encapsulation features
*data-hiding and memory access control features
*type checking: static (compile-time), dynamic (run-time), hybrid, other
*run-time environment: fixed memory, function stack, memory allocation
*libraries: I/O, math, GUI, threads (actually threads can be a part of a language, see [[SR programming language]] (SR means "Synchronizing Resources")
*Inter-application communication
===Notable strengths, unique qualities===
===Notable drawbacks and limitations===
===Sample code===
===Key grammar components (EBNF)===
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(I did not want to just add this to the page until we had some more input -- [[User:Brent Gulanowski|Brent Gulanowski]] 20:34, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC))
:Looks Great! [[User:Noldoaran|—Noldoaran]] [[User talk:Noldoaran|(Talk)]] 06:59, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC) P.S. I've been busy with other things for a while, but I'm going to be active again, now.
I would like it if everyone who plans on helping with this project, would put their user name on the participants list, so we can know how many and which users are avalible to help. [[User:Noldoaran|—Noldoaran]] [[User talk:Noldoaran|(Talk)]] 07:04, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC)
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{{SampleWikiProject}}
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The words "Programming Language" are capitalized in the title [[Cg Programming Language]], but in no other programming language articles. Why's this? [[User:Grendelkhan|Grendelkhan]] 16:41, 2004 May 9 (UTC)
== Writing about programming languages (from the village pump) ==
I think that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way that we write about programming languages. Most articles on programming languages discuss the most popular compiler/interpreter for the language, but the language is a seperate topic to the language.
For example, [[C Sharp programming language]] talks about how "C# does not compile to binary code which can be executed directly by the target computer", but that's just how some implementations of the language work. It has nothing to do with the language itself. It would be possible to make implement a C# compiler that compiles to binary code. The article is about the language, not compilers.
[[Java programming language]] says that Java code can be compiled once and then run anywhere. But this is talking about Sun and IBM's Java compilers. It isn't true for gjc, for example, which compiles to native code.
[[QBasic programming language]] says "Microsoft stopped shipping QBasic with later versions of Windows". How does Microsoft ship a programming language (as the article is clearly about from the title), an abstract concept? Whoever wrote this is talking about a single implementation of the language.
What can we do about this?
[[User:Cgs|CGS]] 23:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
:Bah, I just wrote a great long response to this, and then my browser crashed! It boiled down to:
* C# is a Microsoft language, so Microsoft's implementation deserves most attention - just mention that other implementations are feasible that break this rule.
* similarly, Java was designed with portable execution in mind, so it makes sense to discuss this mode of operation before any of the others - which can be seen as extensions to the original concept
* as for [[QBasic]], the article has the wrong name, is all - there is no "QBasic programming language", it is an interpretter for the same dialect of [[BASIC programming language|BASIC]] as [[Microsoft QuickBASIC compiler|QuickBASIC]] (which could also compile it), which in turn is one of hundreds of mutually incompatible BASIC dialects that have sprung up over the years, but can't really be considered languages in their own right.
** I suggest moving it (what's with this "''foo programming language''" convention anyway? Isn't it breaking a wider convention on obvious naming, except where necessary for disambiguation? What else is ever going to live at [[Smalltalk]] other than the content of [[Smalltalk programming language]]?)
** It (QBasic) should be removed from [[Template:List of programming languages]], too: you wouldn't put [[gcc]] in there, after all.
:So, essentially, the necessary changes are kind of more minor than you make out, although I see your point about the mindset and whatever. Humph, now this is almost as long as my first version - this time I'd better not crash my browser while previewing it, cos I need to get to bed. [[WP:BBIEP|Happy editing!]] - [[User:IMSoP|IMSoP]] 00:57, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
:I agree with CGS's observations, but also agree with IMSoP that priority should be given to the design intentions and popular implementations of a language. Some of it could be resolved by more precise language in the articles; instead of "C# does not compile to binary code...", use "Microsoft's C# compiler does not generate machine-level object code..." or something similar. Anyhow, it definitely needs some attention. I'll try to pitch in. -- [[User:Wapcaplet|Wapcaplet]] 04:27, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
::Maybe a visit to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Programming Languages]] would be in order? --[[User:Phil Boswell|Phil]] | [[User talk:Phil Boswell|Talk]] 08:24, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
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==Infoboxes==
Somehow I've got it in my head that [[programming paradigm|paradigm]] is a good way to categorize programming languages. Here are some possible infoboxes (modeled on the impeccable [[Greek mythology|Greek]]/[[Roman mythology]] boxes).
{| align="left" style="background:ivory; margin: 0 0 0.5em 1em;" id="toc" width=210
|-
!style="background:lightgrey" align="center" colspan=2|[[Procedural programming|Procedural]]<br />[[programming language|programming languages]]
|-
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[C programming language|C]]
*[[Basic programming language|BASIC]]
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Perl]]
|}
{| align="right" style="background:ivory; margin: 0 0 0.5em 1em;" id="toc" width=210
|-
!style="background:darkseagreen" align="center" colspan=2 |[[Object-oriented programming|Object-oriented]]<br />[[programming language|programming languages]]
|-
! colspan=2 | Purely object-oriented
|-
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Smalltalk programming language|Smalltalk]]
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Ruby programming language|Ruby]]
|-
! colspan=2 | Partially object-oriented
|-
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[C plus plus|C++]]
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Python programming language|Python]]
|-
! colspan=2 | Frankenstein object-oriented
|-
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Perl]]
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
|}
<br clear=all />
However, categorizing by [[Template_talk:List_of_programming_languages#Categorizing languages genetically|heritage]] is also good:
{| style="margin-top: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" id=toc
!align=center|[[C programming language]] family
|-
|align=center style="font-size: 90%;"|[[C programming language|C]] | [[C plus plus|C++]] | [[Objective-C]] | [[Java programming language|Java]] | [[C sharp|C#]]
|-
|align=center style="font-size: 90%;"|[[List of programming languages]]
|}
*Each '''language''' page should have a box of similar languages, which are grouped according to whatever classifications we choose (e.g. paradigm, heritage).
**This might involve multiple boxes though: for multiple classifications, or, for multiple paradigms, or both. That can get messy.
But, you might want to include both:
<nowiki>{{</nowiki>Programming_language_begin}} // opens table
<nowiki>{{</nowiki>Programming_language_paradigm_procedural}} // header+rows
<nowiki>{{</nowiki>Programming_language_heritage_C}} // header+rows
<nowiki>{{</nowiki>Programming_language_end}} // final row+closes table
This produces something like the following:
{| align="right" style="background:ivory; margin: 0 0 0.5em 1em;" id="toc" width=210
|-
! colspan=2 style="background:lightgrey" align="center"|[[Procedural programming|Procedural]]<br />[[programming language|programming languages]]
|-
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[C programming language|C]]
*[[Basic programming language|BASIC]]
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Perl]]
|-
! colspan=2 style="background:lightsteelblue" align="center"|[[C programming language]]<br />family
|-
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[C programming language|C]]
*[[C plus plus|C++]]
*[[C sharp|C#]]
| style="vertical-align: top;" |
*[[Objective-C]]
*[[Java programming language|Java]]
|-
| colspan=2 align=center style="background:palegoldenrod; font-size: 90%;"|[[List of programming languages]]
|}
<br clear=all />
Any thoughts? --[[User:Yath|Yath]] 22:03, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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