Talk:Alice (programming language)

Requested move
Alice programming language → Alice (programming language) – Conformance with WP naming conventions atanamir

Notability
I don't know why the template for questionable notability says to cite secondary sources. I contend that any implemented concurrent constraint programming language is notable on the grounds that it's one of the tentacles (or axons, to use another metaphor) by which the present of computer programming technology tries to reach toward its future. Maybe the path to the future won't follow exactly this bridge, but it will follow a similar one, and we don't know yet which one. Jack Waugh (talk) 18:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

List of books for notability.... here CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Deletion review copy. Sources, etc
In the interests of preserving links to the sources that were mentioned in the DR before it disappears into the nether (archive), I've reproduced the discussion here. Throwaway85 (talk) 05:40, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

— Leandro GFC Dutra (talk) 12:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and undelete: Plenty of readily available high quality citations on google scholar  Imprecisekludge (talk) 16:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Endorse, allowing recreation - No matter how much I personally disliked the deletion spree, the DRV rationale borders on nonsense and the consensus was very clear. Given that it seems (from the AfD) that there is more than one Alice programming language and there is evidence of notability of at least one of the two, I'd say no problem if someone rewrites an article with the same title with evidence of notability. -- Cycl o pia talk  18:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The other language/environment already has an article at Alice (software). --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm at a loss as to how all votes to keep outside of the nominator counts as a clear consensus (as noted by Calathan). -- Imprecisekludge (talk) 21:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep#1 -- "use Google"
 * Keep#2 -- "nom is incompetent"
 * Keep#3 -- "here is a list of articles specifically referring to AliceML, and nom is a vandal" -- only (semi-)good !vote
 * Keep#4 -- "use Google"
 * Keep#5 -- "nom is saboteur"
 * Keep#6 -- "look at all these refs that have nothing to do with the article subject"
 * That's how. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Multiple commentators cited good sources that referred to the correct Alice language. Not all such links were clearly marked directly next to keep votes, but they did exist. I'll grant that certain voters were somewhat splenetic, and I can understand how that would cloud one's judgement. --Imprecisekludge (talk) 22:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and relist - While I understand that in general AFDs should be closed based on the strength of arguements, deletion at AFD requires a consensus, and in most cases I don't think it is reasonable to consider a single person's opinion as a "consensus" even if his arguements were the strongest. Given that no one at all agreed with the nominator in that AFD, I don't think it was reasonable to close the debate as a consensus to delete.  With the confusion over what the subject was, not many people actually discussed the real subject of the article, so perhaps relisting would allow more people to discuss the real subject of the article. Calathan (talk) 18:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn to nc A) I don't see a good discussion in that AfD, but I certainly don't see a consensus to delete. (so per Calathan in effect) B) I am seeing a fair number of articles that use, cite, and in some cases describe Alice ML ([]).  It does seem to be used by a fairly small set of folks, but the functional languages community is pretty small, that doesn't make their publications unreliable or unsuitable for WP:N.  Further, there appears to be decent documentation at a number of academic institutions. I can certainly see this being viewed as not enough, but I don't think this AfD was clear enough to override all that. Hobit (talk) 18:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's clear that the nomination in the DrV is bogus, but let's not derail the discussion and rather treat the nomination as a bad !vote. Hobit (talk) 18:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - Someone keeps recreating the page, so I think maybe it needs to be re-deleted and create protected until this deletion review concludes. Calathan (talk) 18:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and undelete: Alice ML is highly notable, there are dozens of references and citations related to the language. It is hugely influential. I respectful ask that editors not familiar with programming languages and computer science bow out of this debate. Relevant: http://www.archive.org/details/20060408-jscott-wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elblanco (talk • contribs) 18:43, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I deleted the article and protected it based on the AFD result, but I will be happy to unprotect and reinstate if the consensus here is to recreate (and it seems to be headed that way). I have no opinion on the merits of the deletion.  NawlinWiki (talk) 19:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and undelete: There was no consensus; there wasn't even a single vote to delete. I know consensus is about the strength of the arguments, not a simple count of votes, but it's quite a stretch to call the view of one person in a group of seven "consensus". Zwilson (talk) 19:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alice ML is a significant for a number of reasons. To quote [1 ], "There is little other work on type-safe marshalling for ML-like languages, and almost none that deals with dynamic type equality across programs in the presence of abstract types. A notable exception is the Alice language of Rossberg et. al." The paper [2 ] is a model of Alice's futures, and one of few formal presentations of futures in functional programming languages. Some other aspects of the language are probably significant, if additional references are required. As for the discussion itself, it seemed the arguments for deletion mostly revolved around claims of the lack of reliable sources, while diverging from WP:RS by claiming Ph.D theses are not peer-reviewed, rejecting peer-reviewed articles for not meeting an unspecified citation count. 20:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.17.107.169 (talk)
 * Allow recreation Something of a meta argument, but the fact that sources apparently exist is insufficient - they need to be in the article. Undeleting the article results in the same issues being apparent, with no real motivation for making the effort to ensure the appropriate references are added (any AfD will be met with the same harassment of the nominator, and DRV made to host the same arguments). I am also rather disinclined to have WP:N deprecated. A recreated article, with references, is fine - as long as there are contributors not scared of a little work. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not WP policy. WP:N is not to delete articles that need work, it is to delete articles that are *not notable*. Policy is to restore the article, tag it as requiring further citation, and wait. If the work is not done, then (maybe) AfD again. In any case, discussion about what sources were and were not cited in the article is rather difficult until the article is restored in some form. -- Imprecisekludge (talk) 21:12, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm a bit surprised by LessHeard vanU's comments. I suspect we are heading that way (sadly IMO), but we aren't there yet either in policy or day-to-day reality. Hobit (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and undelete on the grounds of both process and the notability of the article. On the grounds of process: as others have stated, there was no consensus to delete; the original proposer put the AfD forward, and all comments were for Keep, but the closing admin discounted every reason in favour. Some of the reasons in favour of a Keep decision were personal attacks, and so not legitimate arguments, some mixed personal attacks and legitimate arguments, and some were legitimate arguments; it is clear in this case that consensus was not reached. On the grounds of notability: in the original AfD, the proposer replied to evidence of notability in the form of conference publications and substantial mentions in peer-reviewed publications by rebutting them on several grounds. Let's consider the 'Alice through the looking glass' publication. The proposer claims that the place the paper was presented is 'third-tier' and that they aren't indexed in one particular source, namely the ACM Digital Library. The ACM Digital Library only indexes journal articles published by the ACM - so the claim that anything no in the ACM Digital Library is not notable roughly equivalent to saying, for example, that anything not originally published by News Corporation is not notable. This is an incorrect interpretation of Wikipedia policy. WP:N requires that there are reliable sources for a given article; WP:RS says that 'Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications' and 'Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field' with a list of conditions. The last author on the Alice in the Looking Glass article is very clearly an expert in the field; see, and so the paper is a reliable source according to WP:RS. There is therefore no requirement that articles be peer reviewed. The Alice through the Looking Glass article could be considered a primary source (although the question of whether a source is primary or secondary is blurred for research not based on carrying out experiments). It is therefore worth including some papers which review Alice ML in the notability analysis. The Alice through the Looking Glass paper is cited 35 times according to Google Scholar, including in Introduction to Concurrency in Programming Languages. In summary, taking the arguably primary and the definite secondary sources together, the requirements for notability are very clearly met, and the closing of the original AfD was flawed. A1kmm (talk) 22:31, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn to no consensus / keep While the votes could have been better phrased, there was no consensus for deletion and reliable and verifiable sources that were directly relevant to the article were provided and referenced, and these sources don't need to be peer reviewed to be acceptable. Alansohn (talk) 01:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and troutslap the closing admin for blatantly ignoring the consensus of the discussion, also ignoring the valid sources that were presented in some of the comments, giving a misleading close rationale that gives the false impression that no valid sources were presented, and allowing the personal attacks that were also present in some of the comments to sway his judgement. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Overturn and undelete. Clearly overwhelming consensus to keep. Steven Walling  03:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Link to Website seems incorrect
The "Website" field in the info box says "www.alice.org" on both pages "Alice (software)" and "Alice (programming language)". The site seems to be for the software described in "Alice (software)", so I think the site listed on this page's info box is incorrect. 47.186.122.163 (talk) 01:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)