The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was transwiki and delete. Now it's available at b:Fortran/Fortran examples. MaxSem 19:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fortran code examples[edit]

The article seems to be a list of unrelated examples of Fortran code, Delete per WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information. --Hq3473 18:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information. JJL 19:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Transwiki to the Wikibook on Fortran, if they'll have it. --Gwern (contribs) 19:31 25 October 2007 (GMT)
Transwiki somehwere . 132.205.99.122 20:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 20:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Transwik to Wikibooks on Programming: Fortran with cleanup and to fit format. Keep one example for main Fortran... then Delete. Other languages like COBOL, PASCAL, ADA, PL/I and others have one or two examples. Could not find another language with a sub-article. LanceBarber 08:22, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - it isn't an article about anything, but just some sample code. -- Whpq 16:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Doctorfluffy 23:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or trans wiki or what have you, but we are NOT a how-to guide or collection of code samples!! Burntsauce 18:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge any "keepable" info to the Fortran article; then delete. —Scouter Sig 14:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I'll go against the usual rules: the article contains useful context (especially about older versions) and should not grow indiscriminately. I do not support to have equivalent article for every programming language but Fortran is historically so notable to have an exception. In any case wholesale merging the samples back would be harmful. Pavel Vozenilek 18:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To say it in another way: the code samples show how the oldest programming language had evolved over several decades. This provides some (imperfect) insight on how does the evolution of procedural languages looks like. Theoretically, WP could have a synthetizing article about such evolution but in practice there would be no agreement among editors (comparing computer languages can raise a lot of emotional heat). Article name may be changed to reflect this role, that it is not just a dump of examples to be copied. Pavel Vozenilek 03:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree with Vozenilek. This is a case where increased capacity helps WP. These examples are useful as resource to understanding the language. A print encyclopedia would not have the space to accommodate these examples, but that doesn't make them non-encyclopedic. As someone learning about FORTRAN I find them essential to learning about the subject. Hagan jared 02:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.