Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 September 21

= September 21 =

What's the first year when even a phone can "play Crysis"?*
* Meaning the phone has the specs of a PC that can do it (never dipping below 30 fps @ 1440p while almost visually indistinguishable from max settings), not necessarily that PC-strength Crysis for its OS exists. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:25, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Theoretically a high-end SOC can run the game (assuming Crytek ported it optimally), but not on the settings as you described. Bioshock for the iOS tried to replicate the original experience on a mobile setting, but while it is more or less possible to get it to run unabridged some technical sacrifices had to be made. Blake Gripling (talk) 03:31, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

If Lisp is founded on lambda calculus, what's the foundation of other programming languages?
I hear that lambda calculus is the model of computation at the foundation of Lisp. That makes me wonder what's the foundation of the other mainstream languages like C, Java, Python, JS, Perl and so on. --Llaanngg (talk) 15:56, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Most of the programming-languages that you have listed target abstract machines of the Von Neumann architecture. The underpinning of this architecture is the stored program, composed of executable data, whose sole purpose is to transform input-data into output-data.
 * You can chase down all the theories that can be used to describe such machines; but how you choose to classify these theoretical underpinnings is purely a question of finding your favorite taxonomical scheme. You will find recurring themes related to discrete mathematics, finite state machines, and the mathematics of digital logic.
 * Nimur (talk) 21:23, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The register machine? I asked something similar a while (3 years) ago: [1]. Asmrulz (talk) 05:28, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The foundation of Perl was wanting to create a better AWK and sed. I think all those models (Turing machine, Lambda calculus... string rewriting) don't even figure into language designers' motivations. In imperative languages in particular, once you have ifs and gotos in it, you just know it's Turing complete and can do anything Asmrulz (talk) 06:07, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Template drop-down not working in new chrome
Me and my friend's cite>template drop-down menus aren't working in the new chrome (53.0.2785.116 m (64-bit)). I tried clearing my cache, but it didn't change anything. However, when I access Wikipedia from an incognito, the template drop-down menu works for me. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Do you have any ideas about what might be causing it? Thanks, Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It works fine for me. Can you report what you see in the browser console? (Ctrl+Shift+I -> Console) Ruslik_ Zero 20:48, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, it says the following:
 * <blockquote*This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui.widget".
 * VM120:117 This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui.position".
 * VM120:514 This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.effects.core".
 * VM120:482 This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.tipsy".
 * VM120:72 This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui.core".
 * Please use "mediawiki.ui.button" or "oojs-ui" instead.
 * It looks like the template drop-down is going under the text editing area, if that helps. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:16, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You can start with disabling all gadgets and blanking your common.js/vector.js files. If this helps you should re-enable them one by one until you find a culprit. Ruslik_ Zero 17:49, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for you help! It was the syntax highlighter. Someone else has already reported the issue in the right place. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:24, 22 September 2016 (UTC)