Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Learning Perl: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:00, 21 June 2011

Revision as of 21:01, 21 June 2011

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*'''Keep''' The problem with NBOOK is that it's geared toward literature and fiction, not textbooks, which is what this is. It's the single best known textbook for a major programming language. Full disclosure--I own a copy and have met the author socially once. The citations mentioned above are really an appropriate measure of a textbook's worth--no one issues awards for technology textbooks, nor studies their authors, nor teaches classes on their influence on popular culture... you get the point. NBOOK criteria 2+ are essentially irrelevant to the entire field. [[User:Jclemens|Jclemens]] ([[User talk:Jclemens|talk]]) 05:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

::It seems unlikely that the editors who worked out that policy weren't aware of technical manuals and user guides. We're awash in them! I think the problem is that most of them genuinely aren't notable. Sure, there are exceptions, like K&R's, ''C Programming Language'', or Kernighan and Pike's ''The UNIX Programming Environment'' , that influenced the world, introducing genuinely new ideas about programming languages and operating systems. But most technical books, even good ones like this one, are turn-the-crank how-to technical writing, explaining the features one-by-one with some good examples. No question, it requires skill and some writers are better than others. But notability is all and only about what other reliable independent sources say about the subject. Notability means ''people actually took note'' not just that it seems like they should have. Certainly, notability does not come simply from having sold a lot of copies. [[WP:BIGNUMBER]] [[User:Msnicki|Msnicki]] ([[User talk:Msnicki|talk]]) 21:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)