Wikipedia talk:WikiProject C/C++

Just put myself in the list?

I know quite a lot about C++, but no a lot about Wikipedia :)

I'd like to join the Wikiproject C++. Do I just put my name in the list? Mrjeff 13:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course! More labour, more product! --De ryck C. 14:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Science WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 02:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ansi C articles

Most of the proposed ansi c articles on the project page look to me like descriptions of header files. Is it really necessary to add an article for every single header file? I mean most of these can be much more than the *nix manual pages that exist for them or the help files of any compiler that includes them. -- Koffieyahoo 11:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

do you mean "can't be much more"? -MarSch 13:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, sorry about that confusing typo. -- Koffieyahoo 18:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm ambivalent but what existing header articles I've looked at look good enough. Even so every article (candidate) should be judged on its own merits. --MarSch 17:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a programming manual

I highly respect WikiProjects such as this, and a lot of the C/C++ work is great, but I think one of the subgoals of this project is misguided. Wikipedia is not a reference manual, which is what articles such as fgets amount to. Do we really need an article on every libc function or libc header? A Wiki is indeed a great way to document, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Just like we moved dictionary definitions to a separate wiki, Wiktionary, we should move the programming manual out of Wikipedia. I can't find the AFDs right now, but a number of Java-related articles were all deleted for this reason. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-04-12 09:36Z

I think you're talking about java.lang and java.io, etc. Well about every article in Category:stdio.h doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Would probably make a fine addition to some Wikibook on C. —Ruud 09:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks, those are the ones I was thinking about. The AFD page is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Java.lang. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-04-12 10:10Z

Quote from that afd: "This, and all the other articles concerning the Java standard packages, is merely a list of all included classes. " which is not true of the articles from the C stdlib that I've looked at. You may still have a valid point, but this is not the right argument/precedent. --MarSch 17:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The java.lang article (only admins can view deleted pages) had more non-trivial content than the article C++ standard library and comparable to stdio.h. (I do think C++ standard library should have an encyclopedia article; it just doesn't have enough information yet.) The individual functions declared in stdio.h are even more narrow a topic than stdio.h. The main reason I mentioned the java.lang AFD is for the sentiment that seems to be consensus: Wikipedia is not a documentation system (another Wiki should be set up for this purpose). —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-04-13 01:15Z

printf was previously put for deletion, but didn't get deleted. I think if we make the function descriptions more encyclopedic instead of a manual-look, they deserve to stay. (fyi if the manuals get deleted, my edit count would decrease by at least 200). --D e ryc k C. 12:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose... if they were encyclopedic... but many of them are pure "man" pages right now. I suggest: put the info in the Wiki Man Pages project (of which you could be the leader!); if it doesn't fit there then consider whether it belongs in Wikipedia. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-04-15 10:11Z

I think that this sort of content should stay in the Wikibooks project. There is already a C Programming Manual on Wikibooks. --Shimei 18:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia -- not Wikiman. Wikipedia isn't a manual. As much as I'd love to see a complete C++ reference, and as much as you try to disguise 500 C++ function articles to make them look "-pedia"like, it's not going to change my opinion that Wikipedia is not suitable for this information. We'll be having a C++ "undocumented stuff" wiki template next, and what then? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jafet.vixle (talk • contribs)

If you can help me starting this new project, I'd accept the leadership upon the opening. --D e ryc k C. 12:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to donate server resources and set up the technical side in the hopes that it would eventually be maintained by WikiMedia. However, it looks like the Programming:C wikibook might already be a good place to put it. What do you think? —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-04-17 11:58Z

At this point, I agree that this content seems much better suited for a Wikibook than for Wikipedia. I have trouble seeing how most of these articles could be made "encyclopedic". Willing to be convinced otherwise though. --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My new personal proposal: keep all existing man-like articles and try to make them more encyclopedic; do not create any new function articles unless it's written encyclopedically at start. --D e ryc k C. 16:03, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to concur that adding individual pages for all the functions from the C standard library is not a good idea (redirects are probably okay). I just can't see how they can be made to be of encyclopedic value. The same goes for methods/functions in Java or any other language. Wikibooks is definitely where this belongs. RedWolf 22:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

article list

It seems to me that it is kind of silly to have an article list, when we have a template {Wikipedia: WikiProject C++/Article} which identifies articles. Of course it is much easier to view changes of a list, but bots can be deployed to alleviate that problem. Please comment. --MarSch 13:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "article list" includes redlinks to things that may deserve an article. The template serves only as a reference of existing articles. --D e ryc k C. 09:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naming ambiguity of the project and other problems it entails

It is unclear to me why the project's name was changed from WikiProject C to WikiProject C++. As I understand it, this project is supposed to be dealing with both C and C++. I always take such attempts of unifying the two languages with a grain of salt; too often are they made by people who do not possess sufficient knowledge of intricacies of both languages. Such people start making unreasonable assumptions leading to oversimplications like the famous 'C is just a subset of C++'. Nevertheless, I have decided to give the project a chance to disprove my doubts.

After reading a few articles it has, unfortunately, become apparent that much of them have been written from an extremely C++ biased perspective (which is reflected in the change of the project's name, obviously). Also, some parts were inaccurate, or just plainly incorrect. One example is the previous wording of the section concerning the macro NULL in the stdlib.h article or the erroneous mixing of headers files and the libraries they are associated with.

One other problem is that cstdio in C++ is, in fact, not interchangeable with the stdio.h found in C. The reason for this is that some functions declared in cstdio are non-existing in the C Standard Library (e.g. lfind, itoa and others). Prior to recognising the problem, I have removed such non-standard C functions from the stdio.h article. After encountering similar examples in stdlib, I have realised that the authors' intention was probably to unify the functions belonging to both stdio.h and cstdio (and other similar headers) to single articles.

It is debatable whether adding an article for every single C function and header is productive since many people seem to dislike the idea. That put aside, I think it is safe to say that it would certainly be useful, although mayhaps inappropriate for Wikipedia. I will not discuss the matter of appropriateness here. However, incorrect information defeats even the point of usefulness. Therefore, information presented must not be incorrect or even misleading. And the truth is that C++ specific functions have no place in the C header file articles in their present state.

A possible way to resolve the problem is to restructure the articles in such a way to make it obvious that not all, for example, cstdio function declarations can be found in stdio.h and update the function tables to reflect that change. Please comment. Denis Kasak 20:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it turns out I was wrong. There are no such functions in Standard C++ either, and cstdio and stdio.h (and others) are indeed completely equivalent. Nevertheless, the problem still stands, and this time it's easier to deal with. The solution is simple; all such non-standard C/C++ should be removed from the articles. Denis Kasak 10:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a better solution is to mark those functions "non-standard", instead of removing them as wikipedia is supposed to give as much knowledge as possible. Also, per the discussion above and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science, we're not going to create anymore function-specific articles but we'll keep the existing ones. --D e ryc k C. 10:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see how that can be a better solution. The nature of header articles is debatable in itself, but since they're already written, the biggest favour you can do towards the world is to keep them informationally correct. If I understood correctly, the purpose of the articles should be to describe functions of the C or the C++ language declared in their respective header files, as defined by their respective standards. Since none of the questionable functions are defined by the standards, how can they have a place in those articles? Where do we put an end to it? If my implementation of the C Standard Library happens to be on a planet destroyer and happens to have a destroyTheWorld() function declared in stdlib.h does it make it viable for inclusion in the Stdlib.h article? Denis Kasak 13:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]