Talk:Go! (programming language)

Book

There is a Go! text book available, written by Francis McCabe.

lulu.com/content/paperback-book/lets-go/641689

Unfortunately, lulu.com seems to be blacklisted, so I can't link to it. Update: I added a Google books link. 99.241.159.185 (talk) 20:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Much appreciated, that's a great solution BarryNorton (talk) 21:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

I see no evidence that this is a notable topic. Unless the subject can be verified as notable I'm going to list this for deletion. Jefffire (talk) 21:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

It is definitely notable. F. McCabe, one of the programmers who wrote Go! is currently attempting to get Google to change the name of their language because he had written several papers and a book about his programming language. http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9 for the ongoing discussion on Google's forums. 12.116.117.150 (talk) 22:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Complete nonsense, it's still being actively developed after more than five years and is subject to a credible journal publication and a book. The anti-academic bias on Wikipedia is becoming ridiculous. Why don't you try to tell me how much of this will be notable in five years: List of The X Factor finalists (UK series 6)? BarryNorton (talk) 22:13, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

This is outrageous. The whole point of academic peer review - especially in computer science and related fields - is to check in detail whether material is indeed accurate, relevant and notable. Yet here we seem to have a Wikipedian deciding he knows better than experienced researchers in the field. Mike.stannett (talk) 01:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Being mentioned in a handful among millions of academic papers published each year does not automatically make something notable, nor does the fact that it coincidentally has the same name as something that is notable. The fact that this article appeared only after the naming issue came up is telling. Mike, keep in mind that Wikipedia is not an academic journal. We should be guided by WP:Notability. Specifically, a topic is notable if it "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". This article completely fails on two of the points:

• "Sources", for notability purposes, should be secondary sources.
• "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject

I've examined some of the papers that have cited the original Go! publications, and found that they only contain cursory mentions of Go! in their reviews of earlier work. There's no evidence that Go! has had notable influence on later work. Jefffire, unless new material comes to light, I suggest you go ahead and nominate the article for deletion. --Jonovision (talk) 05:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Then you must not have read Bordini's survey in Informatica (!) which devotes three paragraphs to the nature and history of Go! This is now cited and I trust the matter is closed BarryNorton (talk) 06:26, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I did read that, so let's try to keep out personal accusations. The Informatica article simply summarizes the original author's work, and does not establish why the language is notable. --Jonovision (talk) 06:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not a personal accusation, it's just that it's pretty difficult to see how you could fail to notice how anyone claiming to have looked through the citation network could have missed such a high profile citation. As it is, you're barking up the wrong tree with this whole 'notability means demonstrable influence on later work' argument anyway, as that would mean deleting Google's Go language! What's more, Merek's paper shows such influence - I'm quite willing to add this too, if you can demonstrate that your criterion is necessary - but for now I close the notability argument having included a second journal paper citing and describing the language. Again, if the language were not notable for its combinations of features a survey would simply say "(see also Go! []...)" rather than devote any space to a non-notable language. BarryNorton (talk) 06:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

This is not a high profile citation, it's a brief summary, which hardly includes any information that is not in the abstracts of the original author's papers. It establishes the existence of the Go! language, and nothing more. I also believe it is irrelevant to debate the existence of even less notable languages, or the notability of Google's Go. Who is Merek? --Jonovision (talk) 07:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

You're parsing that incorrectly: it's a citation, which is high-profile because it's made in a notable journal. As I've said, you don't spend half a page in a survey on something you merely want to establish the existence of. Please excuse my typo, Marek Sergot has at least one article on agents showing influence from Frank's approach (which I assume you also saw in the citation network?) BarryNorton (talk) 07:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It's standard practice for academic journals require authors to extensively search for previous work and list it in their publications. Having a few citations is expected for a paper in a journal that's read by others in the same field. So far you've mentioned two small summaries in survey papers (which also mention over a dozen other similar projects, without any claim about Go!'s significance, only it's existence), and one citation by someone who works in the same department at the same university (maybe the guy in the office across the hall?). I still don't think this notable. --Jonovision (talk) 07:58, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

"It's standard practice for academic journals require authors to extensively search for previous work and list it in their publications." - it's a survey paper, this is not some single sentence in a related work section, but (reproduced for the benefit of anyone else who wants to consider the notability of the reference because I'm finished trying to make Jonovision understand) BarryNorton (talk) 08:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC):

"Go! [12] is a multi-paradigm agent programming language, with a declarative subset of function and relation definitions, an imperative subset comprising action procedure definitions, and rich program structuring mechanism. Based on the symbolic programming language April [36], Go! extends it with knowledge representation features of logic programming, yielding a multi-threaded, strongly typed and higher order (in the functional-programming sense) language. Inherited from April, threads primarily communicate through asynchronous message passing. Threads, executing action rules, react to received messages using pattern matching and pattern-based message reaction rules. A communication daemon enables threads in different Go! processes to communicate transparently over a network. Typically, each agent will comprise several threads, each of which can directly communicate with threads in other agents. Threads within a single Go! process, hence in the same agent, can also communicate by manipulating shared cell or dynamic relation objects. As in Linda tuple stores, these elements are used to coordinate the activities of different threads within an agent. Go! is strongly typed, which can often reduce the programmer’s burden, and compiletime type checking improves code safety. New types can be declared and thereby new data constructors can be introduced. The design of Go! took into consideration critical issues such as security, transparency, and integrity, in regards to the adoption of logic programming technology. Features of Prolog that lack a transparent semantics, such as the cut (‘!’) were left out. In Prolog the same clause syntax is used both for defining relations, with a declarative semantics, and for defining procedures which only have an operational semantics. In Go!, behaviour is described using action rules that have a specialised syntax"

Agreed, before the naming controversy this language was not notable and I doubt much will change. This whole article is an attempt to gain notability where none existed in the past. brontide (talk) 14:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated the article for deletion, as it seems to be entirely sourced off the author's publications. If the only source of notability is the controversy over the Google's language name, then it should be mentioned in Go (programming language), not in a separate article. Laurent (talk) 14:30, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Not only is this untrue, but you've interrupted the full quote from a third party publication on the subject to say it here! BarryNorton (talk) 14:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

You mean the text below? I didn't really get what that was, I was just answering to Brontide above. If the text below comes from a secondary source, could you provide a link? Laurent (talk) 14:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I've replaced it where the context explains exactly what it is BarryNorton (talk) 15:07, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

A note about the naming controversy: The naming controversy can be adequately covered in the Google Go article, so that issue alone doesn't make this article notable. Also, keep in mind that notability is not temporary, and a short burst of news on a subject does not constitute evidence of notability. --Jonovision (talk) 05:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

This article was not created to document the naming controversy. Rather the name clash highlighted that there is insufficient information online about a reasonably notable language for those who apparently scorn academic publication and look no further (and not even very well) at the results of their own search engine before making their choices BarryNorton (talk) 07:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

If there is "insufficient information" and they had to add a Wikipedia entry to tell the world what this language is about, then it is not notable. Kamuz (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.225.57.21 (talk) 14:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Who is 'they'? I'm not involved in the language, but already knew about it. I believe I'm part of this 'world' you mention BarryNorton (talk) 15:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

What coincidental timing. Guess the dark side of Wikipedia strikes again. How about this issue is dropped because it really is a moot point that this language is a hell of a lot more notable than thousands of other Wikipedia articles. The fact that the Google controversy (that likely brought this deletion thing up...hmmm) came up further solidifies its notability. The great kawa (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The coincidence of timing was that the Wikipedia Go! article was written just after Google annouced their Go language. There's no coincidence of timing in the proposal for deletion. It's simply being proposed for deletion soon after being created as any other article about a non-notable topic would be.

This article seems to exist merely to be a forum for supporters of Go! against Google trying to make the 800 pound Google change their name. The article didn't even exist before yesterday when Google announced their language. And is there even a controversy outside of Slashdot and Wikipedia discussion pages? Wikipedia shouldn't even dignify Go! with a disambiguation note. --69.3.214.234 (talk) 00:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

May I suggest a massive cleanup of articles on computer programming languages? If Go! is not of note, why is there a page for Befunge? At least Go! is an attempt at something serious. There are several pages on languages that have never been used for anything other than comedy and yet this page may be deleted, it appears, because of the google go naming debarkle. I had not heard of this language before the google announcement, but now I am intrigued by concepts in Go!. This is most definitely of note. I am wondering what you people owe google? (MaxLittlemore) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.11.128 (talk) 02:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Out of the 500+ esoteric languages listed by the esolangs.org wiki [1], I only counted 9 of the most notable ones having their own Wikipedia article. That seems pretty reasonable to me. And, sadly, I do think Befunge, dating back to 1993, does have more users than Go!. --Jonovision (talk) 04:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the editors of Wikipedia all need to be sacked. Memo from the rest of the world to these editors: YOU'RE NOT THAT IMPORTANT. Go ahead, delete this article. And prove to the world that Wikipedia is on a path towards obsolescence. Something else will take over what Wikipedia used to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.174.28.11 (talk) 04:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I really understand your frustration. In particular it seems like working at Google and getting blogged about is an automatic ticket to entry, while having a chair at Imperial and publishing in academic journals is so antagonistic to some editors that they're actively hostile. BarryNorton (talk) 08:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The language has several references in notable media:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enCA305CA305&resnum=0&q=go%20programming%20language&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

If it is the subject of multiple notable media reports, it seems to me it passes wiki's notability test.

Mindme (talk) 18:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I see there are two go languages, one by google and one by Keith Clark and Francis McCabe. That it is itself part of a controversy covered by notable media, it would seem wiki does a service by having both articles for go and go! Those confused can find information on both. Mindme (talk) 18:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Influence

The influence of Go! is now clearly documented via a paper at the ACM's Erlang workshop BarryNorton (talk) 17:38, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Go! is only mentioned in passing in conjunction with another paper. I would not say that the influence has been "clearly documented". 146.151.193.100 (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• I'd have to concede that this is a problem with relying on academic sources on Wikipedia - it seems like most editors don't know how to read them. First the journal survey is completely misunderstood, by people who don't understand what a survey paper is, now this. To be clear, if one is presenting original research then merely periphery work goes in the related work section. Anything that is more important goes at the front, either as explicit background or cited in the approach. Anything at all included in a survey paper has been carefully considered. I hope this helps in future. BarryNorton (talk) 08:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely right. Actually I think this is an example of a more insidious anti-academic bias on Wikipedia, not just due to misunderstanding (although that's certainly a factor). --David-Sarah Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 00:57, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Please don't poison the well with snide comments. Restrict talk page comments to how to improve the article. Jefffire (talk) 13:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps now that the discussions on deletion and notability (including influence) are closed this discussion should be archived and we can move on with a fresh slate? BarryNorton (talk) 13:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.88.37 (talk) 04:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)