Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seed7

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. May be a fascinating project but no evidence of third-party coverage was presented, which is really what's needed for inclusion of articles, not subject arguments about the number of downloads per month and so on. W.marsh 19:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Seed7

Seed7 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Minor programming language with no verifiable userbase.
While Wikipedia includes articles on a number of other minor programming languages, most of these have some other source of notability -- e.g. F Sharp programming language is notable for the Microsoft connection, while Malbolge and Unlambda are notorious in the programming languages community for their difficulty of use. So far as I can tell, Seed7 has nothing.
The WP:SOFTWARE proposal, while not an official policy, is a useful metric for deciding what software should be included. It's worth noting that Seed7 fails it completely; it appears that the only published document about the language is a thesis written by its creator.
Google rankings are a flawed metric, but extremely small numbers of Google results for software is often a useful indicator of non-notability. Seed7 fails here too: "seed7 programming -wikipedia" returns just 120-odd unique results. (Searching without "programming" includes many false positives, and the number of unique results returned is still under 1000.) — Haeleth Talk 16:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per Haeleth's well-detailed nomination. Daveydweeb (^chat/_patch) 21:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination, but I note that unique hits will never be more than 1,000 for any search term. See WP:GOOGLE#On .22unique.22 results. Kavadi carrier 01:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Seed7 has around 100 downloads each month (see SourceForge statistic) which is a small but existing user base.

There are several programming languages with small user bases which have wikipedia articles: A++, BuildProfessional, ChucK, Escapade, Frink, F Sharp programming language, Godiva programming language, Joy programming language, Joule programming language, Kvikkalkul programming language, Malbolge, Nial, Nemerle, Pizza programming language, Revolution programming language, SuperCollider programming language, Unlambda, Var'aq, XOTcl, Z programming language, ZZT-oop.

It is argued that some of this languages are notable for having a Microsoft connection or being difficult to use. This sounds just strange and is no argument at all (Btw.: Seed7 programs are very portable and run under Unix and Windows without any change. And it is easy to turn Seed7 into a difficult to use language since the language is extendable and the interpreter is booted (see below)).

IMHO Seed7 is notable because it has several features which are not found in other programming languages:

• The possibility to declare new statements (syntactical and semantically) in the same way as functions are declared (There are also user definable operators with priority and associativity).
• Declaration constructs for constant-, variable-, function-, parameter-, and other declarations are described in Seed7 (The user can change existing declaration constructs or invent new ones).
• Templates use no special syntax. They are just functions with type parameters or a type result (For example: array, hash, struct and set use a Pascal inspired syntax and semantic. In Seed7 they are not hard coded in the compiler but are templates described in Seed7).
• Seed7 is a syntactically and semantically extendable language: Almost all of the Seed7 language (statements, operators, declaration constructs, and more) is defined in Seed7 in an include file (seed7_05.s7i).
• The application program contains an include statement and the hi interpreter is booted with the language description when it starts. This way it is possible to define language variants or a totally different language.

Other Seed7 features are not unique but are rare and cannot be found in this combination. Hans Bauer 10:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Weak delete, no indication of third-party coverage provided, no evidence found that Seed7 has made a significant documented contribution to its field. The details provided by Mr. Bauer are of some limited interest to a few people but none are enough to make the subject encyclopedic. Barno 17:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, in my company we use Seed7 successfully as scripting language (instead of a "write only" scripting language). We do not publish our scripts, therefore you cannot find anything about that in the internet. I think that Seed7 is used by a lot of people as workhorse without telling Google about it. So Seed7 is definitely of interest to much more than just a few people. On the other hand there are "student joke languages" which are designed to be "difficulty of use". Other students write in a homepage about the 20th version of the "Hello, world!" or other "Mickey Mouse" program in this language. Although such languages are not used for "real world programs" you get a lot of Google hits for this languages. In contrast to such languages there are several non trivial applications written in Seed7. What about Dnafight, there are also rewrites of Apple Panic and Castle Adventure. You can find several games (Shisen, Memory, Tetris, Startrek, Wizards Castle, Sudoku), simulations (Wator, Game of Life, Eliza), a basic interpreter and more. In total you can find more then 50000 lines of Seed7 code. I do not want to delete pages about "joke languages", but I think Seed7 has more right to stay in wikipedia. Zron 08:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC) — Zron (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. User has 17 edits. Kavadi carrier 02:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Apart from seed7's own sourceforge site, there are only two English mentions of "seed7 dnafight" on non-blog/wiki/forum sites, [1] (a one line mention) and [2] (which is the p/l author talking about the p/l). Both constitute trivial mentions and I can be quite sure, if the one of the most popular programs written in seed7 is so obscure, then the main p/l itself can't fare much better. A little more popular than the esoteric programming languages maybe (incidentally, we had an AfD for these too a few months back), but probably not by much. Kavadi carrier 08:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You admit that Seed7 is probably more popular than the esoteric programming languages, but still insist that it must be removed. No arguments count for you, It is just necessary that your goal is reached. -- Zron 06:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep and trim. It has a userbase (if small) outside of its author, is the subject of a thesis, and incorporates a few interesting (if not unique) features that haven't yet found their way into the programming mainstream. This meets my minimum inclusion criteria. However, the current article consists mostly out of how-to and example material; this should be almost entirely trimmed away and replaced with a more encyclopedic discussion of the language's salient features, and how they compare to other languages. --Piet Delport 11:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. IMHO Seed7 is notable because of the following reasons:

• WP:SOFTWARE is not a policy. It is a proposal for a guideline. It is still under discussion and far away from any consensus.
• This comparison table shows Google hits for languages with small user bases (from Mr. Bauer's list). The search for "name programming language" has low counts for all languages in the table. Seed7 fits good in the middle of the hit values of "name programming language". Conclusion: When all these languages have the right to stay in wikipedia, Seed7 should also have the same right to stay.
• Seed7 has a user base which can be seen at the sourceforge statistics, at freshmeat and in this Google group discussion.
• I agree with other people here, that Seed7 contains several unique innovations.
• Here is an abstract of the diploma thesis from Thomas Mertes in German and there is also a Doctorate thesis from Mr. Mertes where the (German) abstract can be found here (search for Mertes).

Georg Peter 09:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC) — Georg Peter (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. User has 45 edits. Kavadi carrier 05:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Reminder to those arguing for keep: So far the proponents for keeping this article have presented one, and only one, source for all the information about this programming language - the man Thomas Mertes himself. The Sourceforge site, the thesis - all are his work. By presenting only the self-published work of one person, the article is in blatant violation of our verifiability policy, which states that "self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources."

If you want this article to be kept, the place for arguing it is not on this page. Go find references to reliable sources totally unrelated to Thomas Merkel who have written about seed7, be they online references or offline. Add these references, if you can find them, into the article. That's the convincing way to argue for its keeping. Not by harping on its "innovativeness", or "user base", or "right to stay" (which, by the way, is a concept as real as luminiferous ether is). After adding references we'll see you back here.

In the event there are no references to be found, do not expect the article to be kept; even so, do take to heart that deletion does not preclude the later writing of an article on seed7 with sufficient references. If Wikipedia were around in 1991, Linux would not have deserved an article back then. Kavadi carrier 12:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The verifiability policy also states: "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field"

And: "Material from self-published sources, and other published sources of dubious reliability, may be used as sources in articles about themselves [...]"

In other words, for the purpose of verifiability, Mertes's self-published works about Seed7 are eligible sources.

This is independent of Mertes's theses, which are peer-reviewed and not self-published, thus definitely qualifying as reliable sources. (I don't know where you get the idea that sources have to be somehow "totally unrelated" to Thomas Mertes; this is simply not true.)

In other words, there is no question about Seed7's verifiability, only about its notability, which is what's being argued above. --Piet Delport 16:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but you have omitted the fact that this article is still based upon only one source. Hence this article fails the notability guideline which states, "In order to have a verifiable article, a topic must be notable enough that it will be described by multiple independent reliable sources". At best, this deserves only a mention in list of programming languages and definitely not its own article. Kavadi carrier 16:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The lack of people writing about seed7 apart from Mertes implies that all we have about seed7 will simply be a re-hash of his writings. Wikipedia is not the place to mirror someone's website. Kavadi carrier 16:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, reliable sources is a guidline (and not a policy), but in the moment: The status of this guideline is disputed. I think this should be taken into account. Glass Tomato 16:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. With short googling I found a Spanish page describing Seed7, a discussion about operators and their definition in Seed7, a German page describing a Seed7 example, a page mentioning the rewrite of Apple Panic in Seed7, an article mentioning the Seed7 announcement, another article about the Seed7 announcement, a code collection with some Seed7 examples, a question about online CVS of Seed7, the softpedia page of Seed7. The links show that Seed7 is used and written about by several persons (beside Mr. Mertes). The various arguments to keep Seed7 are convincing. Additionally I have some points:

The "right to stay" mentioned by several other persons should IMHO be replaced by "fairness" and "equal rights" as in: Equal rights for the programming languages listed by Mr. Bauer and Seed7.

To the "one source of information" discussion: Wikipedia:Notability says at the top: "However, it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception". The homepage of Seed7 is not "someone's website". It is a homepage at SourceForge which contains 100% open source content. That the Seed7 homepage is just written by Mr. Mertes is speculation. At least the Dnafight program mentions two other persons as copyright holder. Another argument against the "one source" idea: A thesis is a scientific work, which is subject of a review by experts in the field. Scientific publications are considered to be the most reliable source. And finally: The Seed7 wikipedia article does not make disputed claims, it just contains several programming examples. -- Glass Tomato 20:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• • The change of semantics to "fairness and equal rights" does not matter; we do not "guarantee" "rights" to any page. When you come to Articles for deletion, all that matters is the content and merits of the specific page, not the contents and merits of any other page, no matter how similar. Please do not use the existance of any other programming language page to plead to keep this one. We will come to delete other articles on programming languages that fail notability and/or verifiability like this one does; it is just a matter of time. Before anyone damages their credibility further by arguing along this line, please read inclusion is not an indicator of notability.

Let's examine the links you have given one by one to see if they indeed qualify as "independent reliable sources":

1. The Softpedia entry contains exactly the same description of seed7 as the Sourceforge site—which one copied the other is obvious.
2. The Google group's message is nothing but a casual "new version" thread from Mertes himself.
3. Codecodex is a wiki. For virtually all purposes wikis are not reliable sources since they allow anyone to post without disclosing their real identities.
4. Announcements such as [3] and [4] tell us next to nothing other than what the sourceforge site already says. As expected, their source is Mertes himself.
5. To say that this mention of the port of Apple Trivia to seed7 is a reliable source is to stretch the limits of credibility. We have no idea who the person making the post is, other than his online handle, so that does not count as reliable source either.
6. The German page is a direct translation of the examples on Sourceforge, specifically the clock example, and statement declaration example. "Independent" source? I beg to differ.
7. With regards to the Spanish page, the Babelfish translated thus, "Interesting programming language, comparable, according to affirms their authors, to C++, Java or Ada, with numerous functions and a use fast and easy. In the page Web you can find information detailed on this program, gratuitous and available in English. So that it works you will need to have installed superior JRE 1,5 or." - nothing but a typical invitation to the software's website.

In the end, after examining all the links, whatever has been written about seed7 comes either from people of unknown identity - which automatically rules them out as reliable sources - or from Mertes himself (or people who parrot his descriptions, but this distinction is immaterial). The requirement for notability is not simply "multiple people have written". It is "multiple people have written in independent reliable sources". None of these links satisfy the requirement.

Responses to your additional points:

1. I have already touched on the nonsense concept that is "fairness and equal rights."

Millions of people died worldwide to reach "equal rights". For you this is just a "nonsense concept". Glass Tomato 07:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Aw... I love people who compare apples and oranges. We are an encyclopedia and we will be discriminate in our choice of articles. If things like seed7 get deleted, please don't take it as an offense. Just tell Mertes to get the IEEE and Mensa to cover his programming language. Then the article will get a better chance of survival. Rhetoric like yours won't work here. Kavadi carrier 07:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

1. To say that the Sourceforge site isn't a personal website for self-published work is wrong; anyone can create an account on Sourceforge and make a new project - in this aspect Sourceforge is no different from MySpace or Geocities, which also allow anyone to register and add content, albeit of a different type.
2. Your statement about the Dnafight program having multiple copyright holders does not dismiss the suspicion that a single person is responsible for all the content on the Sourceforge site, and in the absense of proof to the contrary, that is more likely than not to be the case.

This seems to be the "Guilty until proven innocent" concept. Glass Tomato 07:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No... it's more like the emperor parading around with no clothes on and his subjects refuse to acknowledge he doesn't have any. Kavadi carrier 07:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

1. A thesis may be a scientific work and a reliable source - nowhere have I said anything to the contrary - but at the end of the day it is still a single person's work. Peer review doesn't add anything to that work but prunes it of errors.
2. Your appeal to the "not set in stone" clause of Wikipedia:Notability rings hollow - no assertion has been made that seed7 is anything more than a homebrew programming language with a small group of fans, and hence there appears to be no case to treat it as an exception to the notability guidelines. To argue that seed7 is notable "because I use it" or "because my company uses it" is a fallacy - I use my laptop computer, but that doesn't mean it deserves an article.

Lastly, I agree that the seed7 article doesn't make disputed claims, but only gives examples. That is true - so true that the article is largely a copy-and-paste from different pages on the Sourceforge site. Since Mr Mertes has not posted any copyright notice on his site, we could assume that he still owns copyright on his writing by default, which means any copy-and-pasting from his site onto Wikipedia constitutes copyright infringement. I could slap a {{copyvio}} tag on the article right now and have an administrator delete it automatically within seven days, but I have been so amused by the weak arguments for keeping the article that I'd love to hear more. :-)

As you can see in the history, the wikipedia examples have been created before the Seed7 homepage existed. So there is no copyright infringement. Glass Tomato 07:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The article was started 31 October last year. How do you know that the seed7 Sourceforge site is not older than that? Don't tell me that you're the operator of the site? Kavadi carrier 12:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

When I discovered Seed7 in December 2005 I searched for a homepage and did not find any. Glass Tomato 14:50, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have struck that paragraph out. Kavadi carrier 15:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Vote-stacking tactics such as this are a little underhand for computer scientists, don't you think? ;-) Kavadi carrier 02:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not think it is illegal to invite somebody to a discussion. I think you behave here as if you were judge and executor. And is smells as if the decision has already been made up, independend of the discussion -- Zron 06:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Kavadi, your insinuation is unfounded, and not altogether intellectually honest.

Firstly, i came to this discussion because the article is on my watchlist, not because of Zron's solicitation. Secondly, there is nothing underhanded about the solicitation, given that it was quite explicitly in response to my previously-expressed dissent toward deleting this article, predating this AfD discussion. This was a simple act of courtesy, not of vote-stacking: you should know this. --Piet Delport 12:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I withdraw my hasty allegation of "vote-stacking". Kavadi carrier 13:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I appreciate your integrity, and apologize for questioning it. --Piet Delport 13:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. I know that Seed7 is not accused, but nevertheless I would like to put a final statement here.

• Since 1989 I developed the programming language HAL as private project in my spare time. HAL was based on the ideas of my diploma thesis and dissertation.
• In the year 2005 I renamed HAL to Seed7 and released it under the GPL.
• Seed7 is a stable product, which can be used at any time. The Seed7 package consists of approx. 70000 lines in C (interpreter and runtime library), approx. 50000 lines Seed7 example programs, approx. 10000 lines Seed7 libraries and approx. 100 pages documentation.
• Since January 2006 there is a homepage for Seed7 under http://seed7.sourceforge.net
• As mentioned by someone else there are approximately 100 downloads each month.

Since I wrote the interpreter, the example programs and the documentation, almost everything that is written about Seed7 must be based on my work. This way it is unavoidable that similarities will be found in any derived work. All my work is open source and can be used by anybody for free. An open source project founded by several persons would never hear the "one person" argument.

As you can probably guess, a lot of time and effort went into the open source project Seed7. Everybody is invited to help Seed7 and other open source projects. I think there should generally be more focus on positive things which build something up instead of negative things which destroy something. Thomas Mertes 09:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC) — Thomas Mertes (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. User has 6 edits. Kavadi carrier 10:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• • So you are not denying that the sole purpose of this article is to generate publicity for the work of one person - you? Kavadi carrier 09:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Your conclusion is complete nonsense. As mentioned before, Seed7 gets around 100 downloads each month. Btw.: I have made "just a few edits" in wikipedia because I have a life (family, 3 children) and spend my spare time for something positive instead of spending my whole life in wikipedia deletion discussions. Thomas Mertes 12:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

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.