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 delete. kurykh 04:58, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mesham[edit]

Mesham (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Non notable programming language. Appears to have been created by someone with a WP:COI. Disputed prod. Direct references are to articles created by the language creator and apparent article creator. Talk page argument is WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS noq (talk) 23:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly thanks for this oportunity to explain why I think this language is worthy of an article. You are right, I do have something of a COI, although in this case I do not believe it makes the article any less worthy of inclusion. I have referenced academic papers which have been peer reviewed on the page and, although I was an author in some of them, they are still reputable sources.

There are a number of reasons for the notability of the language. Firstly, and most importantly from a parallel language point of view, the majority (all?) of parallel languages allow for either implicit or explicit parallelism - the former supports simplicity of use, whereas the later efficiency. In the new paradigm and language described at Mesham this allows for a mixture of these parallel choices to be selected by the programmer, which is completely innovative and in this case is the first language of its kind. There is currently a huge amount of effort and money being spent to develop/find a parallel language which is simple yet efficient and Mesham is a good solution to this problem (the new innovative type oriented approach was worthy of a PhD.)

Additionally, as the article explains, Mesham has been used in a number of different applications - one is the porting of the Gadget cosmological simulation package into Mesham, which has been used to simulate galaxy formations and collisions. This is key as it allows for a much simpler app (up to 16x reduction in code size) yet which is still very efficient - meaning physicists can for the first time write their cosmological simualtions in a higher level, abstract form and not have to worry about the performance hit traditionally associated with such.

I also think that in this case consideration of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is relavent. I mentioned in the talk page other languages such as NESL and ZPL - these are worthy of inclusion in wikipedia because, although nowadays they are no longer developed, they do illustrate a path which was followed at one point (and ultimately resulted in a deadend.) Mesham is just as important as these, it illustrates a path which is currently being actively followed, for the first time by this language, at the cutting edge of research into the field - a number of different apps and users have started to use the language and it is growing. I think that the Mesham article certainly fits in and complements these other parallel language articles which all illustrate very different, yet valid, languages which are used to write parallel code (some, for instance Mesham, more than others, for instance NESL.)

I do appreciate it is difficult job you guys do, especially for articles like Mesham in such a specialist field. I am happy to answer any questions you may have to ascertain whether or not Mesham should be included. Nick mesham (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Rankiri, thanks for your contribution. Out of the Papers referenced "Type Oriented Programming Meets Gadget-2" is a secondary sources with only a reference to Mesham - this paper details and concentrates on the issues relating to the cosmological simulation package, Gadget-2, and how the Type Oriented programming paradigm can greatly simplify physicists work in this field. A port of Gadget-2 was written in Mesham, and the paper briefly mentions this, but concentrates on the results of the port (and how it relates to the type oriented paradigm) rather than introducing and discussing the language Mesham itself. Nick mesham (talk) 14:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The paper was written by the designer of the language and two of his mentors. [1] specifically thanks Dr. Chen and Prof. Munro for their involvement in the project. — Rankiri (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rankiri, you are refering to a completely different reference - that is the 4th article reference you are refering to. The title I mentioned in my discussion above was the third reference of the article, an academic technical report, which discusses Gadget and how type oriented programming helps in this case, which the language Mesham has been used in. Nick mesham (talk) 15:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, I'm not referring to a different paper. Type Oriented Programming Meets Gadget-2 was written by N.E.Brown, M. Munro, and Y.Chen, was it not? — Rankiri (talk) 16:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is not the reference you linked to above, nore does the paper I am mentioning contain the text that you reference. I can see why you made that mistake - the paper Type Oriented Programming Meets Gadget-2 is contributed to by those co authors, but whereas [2] you refered to above is a complete primary source, Type Oriented Programming Meets Gadget-2 interprets and generalises the work done to a different end. Nick mesham (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks - I realised after I posted that, that your intention was to prove the connection of the authors of the paper rather than that saying the 4th reference was the 3rd. That is somewhat of a fair point, and whilst that 3rd reference does discuss a completely different aspect and the specific use of the technology it is written by those closer to the subject than is ideal.Nick mesham (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback - Guys, as I said yesterday I have revamped the article with more secondary sources to give it increased reliability. With these extra references and tweaks I feel that the article is much more credible than it was initially. The deadline for the admin review is approaching, so if I can get anymore discussion and suggestions then that would be great. Nick mesham (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • It seems that the newly added sources don't discuss the subject at all. "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. — Rankiri (talk) 11:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reference Type Oriented Programming by Kris De Volder and Wolfgang De Meuter discusses the whole concept of type oriented programming which Mesham is the first language to implement. In which case I suppose it could be said that, related to type oriented programming, the references written by myself are actually secondary sources to this subject. The reference New Implementations and Results for the NAS Parallel Benchmarks also discusses the NAS benchmarks which are mentioned under notability. Nick mesham (talk) 12:04, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, "directly in detail, and no original research is needed". We're discussing Mesham, not the general concept of type-oriented programming. — Rankiri (talk) 14:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I really think you are splitting hairs here Rankiri - you are right in saying the article is not 100% perfect but the sources mentioned do I think give it enough credibility (and I think that is an important distinction in its category.) I just do not see how Category:Experimental_programming_languages can meet this criteria you quote as, by their very definition, they are experimental and in the primary stage (although Mesham is less so than many of the others.) Now I am sure you will quote WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS at me, but from looking at the other languages on Category:Experimental_programming_languages (and even Category:Concurrent_programming_languages) Mesham is just as (and in many cases more so) complete an article with just as many primary/secondary sources and, importantly, as topical as the majority of other languages on these pages. Whilst I respect and applaud your high standards towards keeping Wikipedia a key resource, I do think in certain categories there needs to be some level of flexibility. Nick mesham (talk) 15:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Shimeru (talk) 19:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you - I hope we can get a few more opinions on this article (the ones so far have been very helpful in providing suggestions for improvement.) Please do bear in mind though that this article is within the Category:Experimental_programming_languages category and as such is within that sort of sphere of Wikipedia (the category statement explicitly mentions languages developed in theoretical computer science research, although as mentioned above Mesham is more mature than being purely research.)Nick mesham (talk) 22:29, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is disapointing that no more people have given any more discussion or their views. I do believe that this article is good enough for inclusion within wikipedia, especially with respect to the category it is in. Thanks for those who have given feedback and ideas to help form the article. Nick mesham (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Delete per nom. While the programming language may be valuable, interesting, important, and a breakthrough in parallel computing; until it is the subject of independent, secondary, reliable sources it doesn't get an article here. SnottyWong talk 19:42, 17 May 2010 (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.
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