Wikipedia, anyone can edit it



  • Was reading an earlier side bar post when I decided refer to the wiki page on this right quick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_language

    The first line reads as: Scripting languages (commonly called script languages) are computer programming languages that are typically interpreted and can be typed directly from a keyboard.

    1) "commonly called script langauges", no... wow

    2) "typically interpreted" eh? How else do they run, gnomes?

    3)  I think you all can find the last one h0h0. Actually if you continue reading it almost gets worse.... perhaps a script kiddie wrote this? h0h0

    And that is just the first sentance....

     

    Here are some real gems, can you find them all?:

    -JSP is listed as a scripting language. I guess if it is "code" and not C/Java then yes, you guessed it... Perl isn't a scripting language anymore.

    - "Some languages, such as Perl, began as scripting languages but were developed into programming languages"




  • if you think the article is wrong then fix it.



  • because Im not white and nerdy?



  • @Vechni said:

    because Im not white and nerdy?

    True. You're just fat and lazy. 



  • What!?!? A low-quality article on Wikipedia!?!?  Stop the presses!

    I'd ask for my money back if I were you.  Seriously, though, Wikipedia can be an OK source of informal information, but did you really expect every article to be well-written and completely accurate? 

    In other news, my new favorite form of punctuation is the double-excla-question-mark.  '!?!?'  



  • Really? Cool! Mine is the full stop! Let's found a fan club!



  • @shadowman said:

    In other news, my new favorite form of punctuation is the double-excla-question-mark.  '!?!?'  

    Get out -- a double interrobang ‽‽



  • @shadowman said:

    What!?!? A low-quality article on Wikipedia!?!?  Stop the presses!

    I'd ask for my money back if I were you.  Seriously, though, Wikipedia can be an OK source of informal information, but did you really expect every article to be well-written and completely accurate? 

    In other news, my new favorite form of punctuation is the double-excla-question-mark.  '!?!?'  

    I don't even understand why he thinks this one is so bad. "Commonly called" is very subjective; I'm sure there are people somewhere who call them "script languages." "Interpreted" distinguishes them from compiled languages since scripts are not stand-alone executables.



  • For that matter, there are compilers out there for some scripting languages, and on the other side I've even heard of a C++ interpreter. 



  • I must agree with those that think this article is not a WTF.

    If you think 'can be typed directly from a keyboard' is a WTF, then you are just not ready to accept what script languages (huh, I actually said that) offer you.



  • The real WTF is the guy who made this thread, who "fixed" these "problems" with the article by making it worse, and was promptly reverted by an anon.



  • @tster said:

    if you think the article is wrong then fix it.

     

    YAFI, YGI.  Is it better now?

     



  • sorry I made everyone mad, my inner child is hurt now....

    The original article was pretty bad, perhaps this would have been more entertaining as yes, the one it links to know looks like a crappy sidebar post....

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scripting_language&oldid=166946059

     

    This version is WTF worthy, as others read this and employ this knowledge (or rather, sum of knowledge as not one person editing that knows jack about what they chose to write about) ...There are people out there who talk about IT, and write things like "programs are converted permanently into binary executable files"  <-- leaps and bounds of absolutley no knowledge... it's almost as though the less a person knows about a subject, the more inclined they feel gather where others can hear them---- definetly WTF.



  • @cconroy said:

    @shadowman said:

    In other news, my new favorite form of punctuation is the double-excla-question-mark.  '!?!?'  

    Get out -- a double interrobang ‽‽

    Interrobang!  That's awesome.
     



  • @Matevžk said:

    I must agree with those that think this article is not a WTF.

    If you think 'can be typed directly from a keyboard' is a WTF, then you are just not ready to accept what script languages (huh, I actually said that) offer you.

     

    Yeah that guy is an r-tard.

    I think I'm going to go back to work now and program in script language, where I will type directly into my keyboard, and hopefully compile some programs into permenant programs.



  • @Matevžk said:

    I must agree with those that think this article is not a WTF.

    If you think 'can be typed directly from a keyboard' is a WTF, then you are just not ready to accept what script languages (huh, I actually said that) offer you.


    Good grief.

    Yes, "can be typed directly from a keyboard" is a WTF, because almost [b]all[/b] programming languages can be typed directly from a keyboard. (The "almost" is there so that the inevitable obscure example based on clicking icons or drawing doodles won't invalidate this complaint.) C? Yes. C++? Yes. Java? Yes. AppleScript? Yes. Perl? Yes. Python? Yes. Fortran? Yes. Visual Basic? Yes. COBOL? Yes. SmallTalk? Yes. Javascript? Yes. Ruby? Yes. Ada? Yes. Even WhiteSpace, which is a joke language designed more or less to be useless, can be typed directly from a keyboard. The phrase "which can be typed directly from a keyboard" might as well be replaced in this context with "which exists" for all the good it does in defining the idea.

    Possibly this was idiot-speak for "can be typed directly into a command prompt", but even that isn't necessarily a good definition, since it relies on compiler design; I'm sure that there are command-line C compilers which can execute code entered as a command-line argument.

    In a way, it's irrelevant, though, because the idea of a "scripting language" is highly artificial anyway these days. Look at Perl, Java, and AppleScript. The common consideration is that Perl and AppleScript are scripting languages, while Java is not. But you can write non-trivial programs in Perl and AppleScript, and compiled Java bytecode still needs an interpreter to do anything. (AppleScript does the same thing, in fact -- a compiled AppleScript is actually a series of event structures which are then interpreted by the OS.) Except for languages which are deliberately limited in scope, "Scripting" is an attribute of what you do in a particular chunk of code, not an attribute of the language.



  • @The Vicar said:

    @Matevžk said:

    I must agree with those that think this article is not a WTF.

    If you think 'can be typed directly from a keyboard' is a WTF, then you are just not ready to accept what script languages (huh, I actually said that) offer you.


    Good grief.

    Yes, "can be typed directly from a keyboard" is a WTF, because almost [b]all[/b] programming languages can be typed directly from a keyboard...

     I'm pretty sure Matevžk was being sarcastic/ironic, dude.
     



  • @The Vicar said:

    I'm sure that there are command-line C compilers which can execute code entered as a command-line argument.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_shell comes pretty close to qualifying.

    I can think of a few languages that one might be able to argue can't "typed directly from the keyboard", though -- machine language (Well, maybe with a good binary editor...), and anything that relies on punchcards.

    Meh, even if the author of this abomination had a valid point, they failed utterly in expressing it clearly.
     



  • The C shell is really nothing like C.  It just shares some superficial syntactic similarities (alliteration not intended).



  • @merreborn said:

    @The Vicar said:
    @Matevžk said:

    I must agree with those that think this article is not a WTF.

    If you think 'can be typed directly from a keyboard' is a WTF, then you are just not ready to accept what script languages (huh, I actually said that) offer you.


    Good grief.

    Yes, "can be typed directly from a keyboard" is a WTF, because almost [b]all[/b] programming languages can be typed directly from a keyboard...

     I'm pretty sure Matevžk was being sarcastic/ironic, dude.
     


    I thought that at first, but when I reread it I changed my mind. Some of us, no doubt, are Bjorn Stroustrup's alter ego, but some of us -- even on this board -- are Kyle Soze and Brice Richard.

    @merreborn said:
    machine language

    Nope; you can write the code with a keyboard, these days. You then compile it to turn it into a binary. (It's just another compiled language -- and a darned tedious one, which is why most people program in assembler instead when seeking that sort of control.) Punch cards are arguable -- they were before my time, but I'm told that, in what might be called the golden age of punch cards, the programmers wrote out the code in advance and the cards were produced by people employed for the purpose, which would make them a medium, not a language. Nothing prevented the programmers from using a keyboard, and nothing would prevent someone who wanted to use punch cards from writing their code with a keyboard and then "compiling" it by punching the cards.

    Geez, think of doing that these days... putting that much effort into a project which, at best, will do in a period of days what other systems can do in minutes or seconds. There's a joke in there somewhere about GUIs for Linux, you know...



  • @merreborn said:

    @The Vicar said:
    @Matevžk said:

    I must agree with those that think this article is not a WTF.

    If you think 'can be typed directly from a keyboard' is a WTF, then you are just not ready to accept what script languages (huh, I actually said that) offer you.


    Good grief.

    Yes, "can be typed directly from a keyboard" is a WTF, because almost [b]all[/b] programming languages can be typed directly from a keyboard...

     I'm pretty sure Matevžk was being sarcastic/ironic, dude.
     

     Oh, so there's other ways of developing permanent programs than flipping binary switches? I always learn something new here ... :)
     



  • @merreborn said:

    @The Vicar said:

    I'm sure that there are command-line C compilers which can execute code entered as a command-line argument.

    comes pretty close to qualifying.

    The most obvious example would be gdb, which lets you type in approximately-C expressions and directly evaluate them in the current context of execution. I actually use that as one of my primary means to experiment with obscure stuff.

     

    I can think of a few languages that one might be able to argue can't "typed directly from the keyboard", though -- machine language (Well, maybe with a good binary editor...), and anything that relies on punchcards.

    While early punched cards were crafted by hand, people quickly created a device like a typewriter that punched them out for you. 



  • @The Vicar said:

    Possibly this was idiot-speak for "can be typed directly into a command prompt", but even that isn't necessarily a good definition, since it relies on compiler design; I'm sure that there are command-line C compilers which can execute code entered as a command-line argument.

    UIM/X is a gui builder tool for Unix that includes a C/C++ interpreter.



  • @The Vicar said:


    Yes, "can be typed directly from a keyboard" is a WTF, because almost [b]all[/b] programming languages can be typed directly from a keyboard. (The "almost" is there so that the inevitable obscure example based on clicking icons or drawing doodles won't invalidate this complaint.) C? Yes. C++? Yes. Java? Yes. AppleScript? Yes. Perl? Yes. Python? Yes. Fortran? Yes. Visual Basic? Yes. COBOL? Yes. SmallTalk? Yes. Javascript? Yes. Ruby? Yes. Ada? Yes. Even WhiteSpace, which is a joke language designed more or less to be useless, can be typed directly from a keyboard. The phrase "which can be typed directly from a keyboard" might as well be replaced in this context with "which exists" for all the good it does in defining the idea.


    Someone should get to work on a language that can only be written using mouse gestures.  Call it Symphony and don't forget to port it to the Wii.



  • @Cap'n Steve said:

    @The Vicar said:

    Yes, "can be typed directly from a keyboard" is a WTF, because almost [b]all[/b] programming languages can be typed directly from a keyboard. (The "almost" is there so that the inevitable obscure example based on clicking icons or drawing doodles won't invalidate this complaint.) C? Yes. C++? Yes. Java? Yes. AppleScript? Yes. Perl? Yes. Python? Yes. Fortran? Yes. Visual Basic? Yes. COBOL? Yes. SmallTalk? Yes. Javascript? Yes. Ruby? Yes. Ada? Yes. Even WhiteSpace, which is a joke language designed more or less to be useless, can be typed directly from a keyboard. The phrase "which can be typed directly from a keyboard" might as well be replaced in this context with "which exists" for all the good it does in defining the idea.



    Someone should get to work on a language that can only be written using mouse gestures. Call it Symphony and don't forget to port it to the Wii.

    So it's biggest plus will be that you can do a workout while working? 



  • As a disillusioned wikipedian, i am resigned to say this is common in Wikipedia. Specially in topics nobody has seriously contested or as an other extreme are fought over ferociously. All I can recommend is that if it offends you fix it, but be prepared to be accused of vandalism and asked to provide a reliable source for anything you did, if the article happens to be creators pet... Which low quality articles tend to be.



  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scripting_language&oldid=167038416 <- this is the version author is referring to. I have tried to fix the current one.



  • @death said:

    As a disillusioned wikipedian, i am resigned to say this is common in Wikipedia. Specially in topics nobody has seriously contested or as an other extreme are fought over ferociously. All I can recommend is that if it offends you fix it, but be prepared to be accused of vandalism and asked to provide a reliable source for anything you did, if the article happens to be creators pet... Which low quality articles tend to be.

     

    I think the difference in quality between articles  is when the topic has a commercial interests.

     No organisation can be bothered to update 'scripts, but I am sure compiler companys would be interested in getting there name under the entry for c as a pioneer

     



  • @death said:

    Specially in topics nobody has seriously contested or as an other extreme are fought over ferociously. All I can recommend is that if it offends you fix it, but be prepared to be accused of vandalism and asked to provide a reliable source for anything you did, if the article happens to be creators pet... Which low quality articles tend to be.

    *crosses fingers* [i]Please don't try to fix the article.[/i]

    ... 

    @death said:

    I have tried to fix the current one.

    Damn!
     



  • Side Bar WTF, anyone can post in it



  • @stratos said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:
    Someone should get to work on a language that can only be written using mouse gestures. Call it Symphony and don't forget to port it to the Wii.

    So it's biggest plus will be that you can do a workout while working? 

    Needs to be any input device.  I want to program with a dance pad, shotgun, joystick, motorcycle, etc.  You'll have everyone on the development "team" working together!
     



  • Incidentally, the quality of the article has increased enormously after this post...

    Having been edited by someone much less lazy than the original thread author.

     

    HuhWikipedia improving in quality as a function of time!?‽interrobang1001!?

    What
     



  • Okay, I fixed it. Now it says "poop."



  • @R.Flowers said:

    Okay, I fixed it. Now it says "poop."

    Somebody let their inner vandal/child loose I see. 

    Part of wikipedias magic is that even a horrible article can develop into a sensible one if someone with a clue stumbles on it and gets offended by the stupidity. Happens all the time :D

    Fights over articles can be motivated by anything. Commercial interests generate the least bloody disputes. Try to stick your nose in content disputes about history or politics or religion and you get it promptly bitten off and if unlucky banned as a sock of some prehistoric permanently banned troll.

     And don't worry, due to the inherent nature of a wiki, the stupidity is still there in the history, you have not lost it ;)...
     


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