XBLite wikipeida page deleted

[David SZAFRANSKI]

FYI -

I have learned that the wikipedia article on xblite was deleted because
one reviewer determined that

"XBLite is an insignificant contribution to the space of BASIC languages"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/XBLite

So, I guess it is official, we are all using an insignificant language. Ouch!

I didn't write the original article on xblite for wikipedia, and I
really can't do anything about it, since, as the author of xblite, I
would be obviously biased.

So, here are the reasons for deletion:

1. XBLite is an insignificant contribution to the space
of BASIC languages and therefore should be removed.

2. The user community is miniscule. For example, the Google
group for XBlite, which is the main community vehicle,
is only comprised of several hundred users, a very few number
of which are active.

3. Furthermore, the purpose of the article appears to be more about
advertising than anything else.

Conclusion:
Delete unless citations from reliable sources are added to comply
with the verifiability policy.

Ok, first, item 1 above is basically the reviewers personal opinion,
since the reviewer is most likely not an expert on programming
languages, nor does the review cite any evidence that XBLite
is an insignificant programming language.

I prefer the term "niche" language ;-)

Second, you cannot determine how many programmer's are using xblite
by the number of people subscribing to a mailing list. Plus, the
google group is available online as a forum where anyone can browse
the topics without participating. Obviously, most mailing lists and
groups have many more lurkers than participants. Obviously, xbasic
and xblite are niche BASIC languages, but our contribution to BASIC
programming is definitely not insignificant.

Third, a topic such as xblite which describes the history and nature
of a programming language cannot be construed as advertising any more
than a topic on the C programming language is "advertising" for C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_programming_language

In fact, the using the word advertising implies that xblite is
a commercial product, which is also not true. Obviously, all
xblite programmers know that xblite is free, open-source, and
licensed under GPL and LGPL.

So, all of the stated reasons for deletion are all straw arguments
with no reasonable evidence given for the article's removal.

The only strong argument they have is that the xblite article does not
have any citations from reliable 3rd party sources; eg, research papers,
news articles, book cititations, etc. So without some academic, peer-reviewed,
"serious" citations, xblite has been banished from wikipedia.

If you are curious, the wiki article on xblite looked somethng like this:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/XBLite

I'm curious why the article on xblite was deleted and not also this one for Pelles C:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelles_C

So troglodyte programmers, move on, nothing to see, go back to your caves ;-)

ciao,
D.

[bushpilot]

Yeah, I saw that. It is sad to see a participant in a "collaborative"
project to just delete the work of another, rather than suggest
improvements.

Greg

[Guy]

Hi D.,

I believe I am the One who added xblite to wikipedia:
1. in English
2. in French

The only true xblite Expert is you, but a growing User base is
building up since its inception in 2002.
IMHO, xblite does not qualify for being fading away.

At this point, xblite shows potention:
- a fast compiler (thanks to Max Reason and D.)
- an efficient generated code (thanks to Greg Heller)
- an outstanding program editor, almost an IDE (thx to D. and Neil
Hodgson)
- an experimental peep-hole optimizer (thx to Greg Heller)
- some interesting libraries, in addtion of XBASIC's:
. WinX for Windows GUI applications (Callum Lowcay)
. GreenXML (Rhett Thomson)
. an experimental UTF-16 LE library, ready to be put to the test
...
- vixen to generate GUI applications (thx to John Evans)

I would like to mention Rhett's code XbliteDesigner, which I find
already impressive even at its early stage of development and
I just contributed for a trace facility, which comes in handy for
debugging purpose.


I don't know about you(s), but it sure looks to me as signs of a
healthy open-source project, even though Wikipedia is trying to bury
it!

Bye! Guy

[Guy]

My apologies to the Author of the original article in English: I do
not recognize my writing so I'm not sure.

On the other hand, I did author the French article at
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBlite
which is more or less the translation of the English article.

[Bruce M. Axtens]

So is there no means of appealing the decision? David, your bias is
acknowledged, but that doesn't mean your opinion is worthless! Tell me
who to email, and I'll email 'em!

Kind regards,
Bruce.

[bushpilot]

It seems that FreeBASIC is experiencing the same thing.

http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11886&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Greg

[Guy]

Hi D.,

As seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Hangon
"(...) Place {{Hangon}} on the page that is tagged for speedy
deletion, and immediately give a reason on the associated talk page.
Don't remove the speedy tag when doing it. (...)"


Here is how I processed in the French wikipedia, since English is not
my native language:
1. I asked for a User Id as a Contributor
2. I used this User Id to add (very small) articles to Wikipedia when
I felt that they were missing

I did not do it for the English Wikipedia (again, English is not my
native language) but I contributed in some articles (i.e.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search) as an anonimous
contributor; however, I can see that these contributions disappeared
over time, probably because precisely that they were anonimous.

Bye! Guy

[lzdude69]

Hi,

Yeah agree that the deletion freaking ridiculous. Xblite is indeed a
"hidden treasure" as someone put it, and definitely doesn't deserve
being erased from Wiki...it's not like the page isn't informative, and
there is no way it is advertising. Well D. as your views on the
reviewers reasons are 100% correct, I won't feel sad if you protest it!

[Roberto Petresco]

Why wikipedia would delete exactly the xblite page ? There are so many stuff there that would deserve being deleted first... I hope somehow the page returns.   Roberto --- On Thu, 7/31/08, lzdude69 <lzdu...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[Roberto Petresco]

GLupt, this seems a new form of racism.... Software language social exclusions...   I just wrote to D. saying that I belong to two other discussion groups that manage to be even smaller in number and in general public interest as XBLITE´s a) model rocket design - homemade (some 500 members and some 35 active) b) ancienne chinese board game of GO (some 300 members and some 20 active)   Both have plenty of space on wiki and similars.   D. I forgot to tell you in the PVT e-mail that With GO we developed a free wiki page at http://go.theend.com.br   Now perhaps you would think this way you get rid of the crazy behavior of the wikipedia revisors..... It is true BUT this poor small and with no financial supporters wiki page is being subject to furious attacks of hackers and automatic invaders robots -and all the crazy thinks we can find on the net- and several pages of this wiki had to be turned unchangeable due to these massive atacks from hackers. What is the use of a wiki page that is uneditable...   I guess with no fight there is no life...   Roberto Petresco --- On Thu, 7/31/08, bushpilot <africab...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: bushpilot <africab...@gmail.com> Subject: [xblite] Re: XBLite wikipeida page deleted To: "xblite" <xbl...@googlegroups.com>

[Garrett]

It's amazing that a basic that is fully developed with active users is
deleted, but yet, you find a basic that never even had users, because
it was never released! listed with no issues on wikipedia.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gnome Basic (GB) was a software project whose goal was to provide
Visual Basic compatible functionality for the GNOME project.
Compatible functionality with Microsoft Office's Visual Basic for
Applications was considered especially important.

The project has since been discontinued, and apparently never went
beyond the development stage. The Mono project, which implements
VB.NET, largely supersedes it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_Basic

Yup, I remember this one too.. Never got released, but yet, here it
is, taking up space on Wikipedia, even says it right there,
uncompleted project.

[Garrett]

I'd also suggest that someone simply start a new article again on
XBlite there as it obviously does belong on wikipedia and is more than
significant enough.

[mystikshadows]

I did just that as you can see here. I put in a bit more information
while I was at it ;). I did some research so if Dave or Guy or
someone that might know more than me want to check it out, make sure
I'm not exagerating anything. I don't think I am. You can read the
new page at the old URL right here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xblite

Hope you liked it, I took the liberty to create some infobox and such
seems to be the trend these days on wikipedia. Let's hope it helps it
stay right where it is this time.

Regards,

MystikShadows
Stephane Richard

[David SZAFRANSKI]

mystikshadows wrote:
>
> I did just that as you can see here. I put in a bit more information
> while I was at it ;). I did some research so if Dave or Guy or
> someone that might know more than me want to check it out, make sure
> I'm not exagerating anything. I don't think I am. You can read the
> new page at the old URL right here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xblite
>
> Hope you liked it, I took the liberty to create some infobox and such
> seems to be the trend these days on wikipedia. Let's hope it helps it
> stay right where it is this time.
>
> Regards,
>
> MystikShadows
> Stephane Richard

Hi Stephane,

Thanks for doing all the great work, the article looks really nice and
is very well written with a clear style.

The PCOPY! reference is very helpful, perhaps show the article(s) issue, date, and article title; eg;

PCOPY! Issue #60, January 8th 2008, An Xblite Primer, Guy Lonne.

There was a review of xblite in GMTech Magazine, Issue 5, May 2007, page 22.
Perhaps there is some content within the article which you can quote
(and also list as another reference).

http://www.gamemakertech.info/
http://www.gamemakertech.info/archive/Issue_Five.pdf

The strongest critique of the original xblite wikipedia article was that it
had no objective references or sources, so the additional GMTech article could
be helpful.

If anyone knows of any other independant reviews or articles which
mention xblite, please let us know.

Also, the new official website for xblite is at http://www.xblite.com/.

You might also discuss that there is an assembly peep-hole optimizer
for xblite, xpeeper, which is under development by Greg Heller. There
is even a wikipedia article on peep-hole optimizers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peep-hole_optimizer

Also, the back-end assembler used is GoAsm, http://www.godevtool.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language#Assembler

Surprisingly, there is no wiki article on GoAsm although it is listed
on an assembler comparison article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_assemblers

Thanks again for your support.

ciao,
D.

[mystikshadows]

Ok, I've made the appropriate changes to the pages. One of the better
pages on the wikipedia if I do say so myself. lol A lot more
references this way. I think it will help a lot as you mentioned.

XBLite is worth this effort. And I'm glad to be doing it. :)

MystikShadows
Stephane Richard

[David SZAFRANSKI]

Hi Stephane,

Looks even better now! You wiki skills are excellent.

FYI, a beta version of the Xpeeper optimizer has been included
with xblite since v2.30. The optimizer is run using the compiler switch -o.

thanks,
D.

[David SZAFRANSKI]

Stephane,

Sorry, one more thing, in the info box, the xblite website should be
http://www.xblite.com/

thanks,
D.

[mystikshadows]

On Aug 2, 9:58 pm, David SZAFRANSKI <david.szafran...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Thank you for your kind words David. Let's help that the folks at
wikipedia agree with you. :). I think it looks very good, clear,
consize, boasting without advertising, referenced, categorized you
name it ;). I just can't think of what's missing. So I think it's
complete until someone says so.

I did a quick search for other XBLite mentions and I haven't found any
that weren't links to one of the existing references there. So we'll
see what happens with it.

I'm just glad I can help :).

[David SZAFRANSKI]

Stephane,

Ok, last item for tonight...

As you have stated, the code editor for xblite, Xsed.

It is written in XBLite and is based on the Scintilla control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintilla_%28editing_component%29

Do you think a small jpg screenshot of Xsed would be helpful?

ciao,
D.

[Guy1954]

Hi Stephane,

Thank you for your new article in Wikipedia. Maybe I can translate
into French and replace my own in the French Wikipedia...:)

Just a small correction:
"(...) One of the latest project is a visual GUI designer called vixen
(created by Guy Lonné) which is designed to cut time on the visual
design of applications. (...)"
vixen was created by John "prujohn" Evans in 2006. I applied as a
developer almost at the beginning of the project but prujohn posted
version 0.50a july 22, 2006 at SourceForge, which was entirly his work
and already quite functionnal. Then, he moved on other projects for
personnal reasons and "promoted" me admin of the vixen project.
However, the original design is all his.

Bye! Guy

[mystikshadows]

Hi Guy,

I made the appropriate changes to the wiki to reflect the information
you mention. I also changed (yesterday) the information about xpeeper
being distributed with XBLite since version 2.3.0.

If anyone else has anything to add (or change) just let me know
here. :)

MystikShadows
Stephane Richard

[mystikshadows]

I just noticed the little note here about the infobox's website to be
changed to xblite.com I did just that. :)

Sometimes, it pays to get a good night of sleep, makes you see things
you never thought were there before. LOL Then again, the opposite
(sleep deprivation) can have similar effects, I hear. hehe

MystikShadows
Stephane Richard

[David SZAFRANSKI]

> If anyone else has anything to add (or change) just let me know
> here. :)

Hi Stephane,

You can link the word "compiler" to this wiki article:'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler

Also, you might mention some details about the XBLite compiler. It is
a two-pass, self-hosting compiler - it is written in XBLite
and compiles its own source code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting

Since v2.10, XBLite programs can take advantage of using the m4 macro
preprocessor tool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4

ciao,
D.

[mystikshadows]

Done deal. COmpiler is linked to the wikipedia compiler page and
added to the XBLite Development Specific Events section. :)

On Aug 3, 8:18 am, David SZAFRANSKI <david.szafran...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[robolinus]

David et al.,
even if I'm just starting to use xblite (ehm... with some problem, see
my post), my experience in the professional I.T. world is quite long
(worked for Digital Software Services, 14 years, and IBM ERP Services,
10 years) so believe me if I say:

- I've examinated hundreds of open source projects like yours, and
imho xblite is in the top 5 list for professionality and completeness
of available resources and tools; to put it bluntly, you are in the
top list with Python, KBasic, Ruby and SharpDevelop, and outperformed
Euphoria, JustBasic, Yabasic, FreeBasic, all the open source Pascal/C+
+ variants etc.

- While for professional use professionals of course have to follow
the general trend (my teams use Java and C#), there's a lot of guys
(often the same professionals in their free time) looking for a
reliable, stable and more relaxing software development tool,
extensible and capable to link any dll found on the web or made
personally in Modula2 or in C 12 years before, with some facility for
GUI application development and so on. My experience: in 25 years of
professional activity as a programmer I had to learn more than 20
programming languages in hundreds of variants. I don't want to follow
the same Odissey for fun!

The future in this field is not Just One Language For All & Every
Case, but, more realistically Gimme My Compiler And I Raise the World.

So, pls accept all my compliments for the xblite community and my
blame for Wikipedia troglodytes.

Robi

[mystikshadows]

Hi Robi,

Thanks for the kind words, I'm sure David will read this shortly ;).
Wikipedia Troglodytes is a new term to me, English is not my native
tongue. ;) But i'll look up the definitions. However, From one
professional to another (I'm a software developer by trade as well) I
have to agree with what you're saying. xblite is quite the language
and it's community, set themselves apart with their support when
situations like these happen. :).

There's no telling what the future holds for XBLite, no one can see
into the future (well, let's say not too many of us ;) but if how a
language is today (as well as its community) shape what a programming
language will be tomorrow, I say XBLite is on it's way to being one of
the best out there. Performance wise it's already up there.
Popularity wise, usage wise, that is just a matter of time. :). And
when time is just about the only factor in the way of a project's
success, well, I don't see anything to worry about here. hehe.

SO yeah, there's definitely more than one rock solid reasons why
XBLite belongs on the Wikipedia. And let's hope this 2nd take at the
Wikipedia page sticks like Crazy Glue this time. :).

MystikShadows
Stephane Richard

[robolinus]

On Aug 3, 6:59 pm, mystikshadows <mystikshad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Robi,
>
> Thanks for the kind words, I'm sure David will read this shortly ;).
> Wikipedia Troglodytes is a new term to me, English is not my native
> tongue. ;)  But i'll look up the definitions.

I suggest not to search on Wikipedia.

> There's no telling what the future holds for XBLite, no one can see
> into the future (well, let's say not too many of us ;) but if how a
> language is today (as well as its community) shape what a programming
> language will be tomorrow, I say XBLite is on it's way to being one of
> the best out there.  Performance wise it's already up there.

Just a flash: if I should distribute my C# small applications (less
than 10k lines of code) on the Web, I should oblige my poor users to
download and install the 320 MB 3.5 .net machine!

> SO yeah, there's definitely more than one rock solid reasons why
> XBLite belongs on the Wikipedia.  And let's hope this 2nd take at the
> Wikipedia page sticks like Crazy Glue this time. :).

Definitely, I agree.

so long,

robi (ciao)

[David SZAFRANSKI]

> Done deal. COmpiler is linked to the wikipedia compiler page and
> added to the XBLite Development Specific Events section. :)

Hi Stephane,

Perhaps add links for the following words:

"BASIC" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
"code editor" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_editor
"GUI" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI

Ok, that should do it for now... ;-)

ciao,
D.

[mystikshadows]

lol...Changes are made. ;)


On Aug 3, 6:30 pm, David SZAFRANSKI <david.szafran...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > Done deal.  COmpiler is linked to the wikipedia compiler page and
> > added to the XBLite Development Specific Events section.  :)
>
> Hi Stephane,
>
> Perhaps add links for the following words:
>
> "BASIC" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
> "code editor" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_editor

> "GUI" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI

[Guy1954]

Hi Richard,

I read with interest your presentation of xblite in Wikipedia (several
times).
Great job! I thought I know some and your article succeded to teach me
even more, especially with the links. My sincere thanks for your work.

Regards, Guy

[bushpilot]

On Aug 3, 2:03 am, David SZAFRANSKI <david.szafran...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> mystikshadows wrote:
>
> Also, the back-end assembler used is GoAsm,http://www.godevtool.com/

>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language#Assembler
>
> Surprisingly, there is no wiki article on GoAsm although it is listed
> on an assembler comparison article
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_assemblers
>

> ciao,
> D.

I was the one who added GoAsm to the comparison article, but didn't
feel competent enough to create a new article for it.

I like what you have done Stephane. I may go remove my name, I am
still thinking about that. No need for you to do anything, if it
bothers me enough I will take care of it.

Greg

[mystikshadows]

Thanks Guy and Greg I'm glad you liked it :-). And I hope the
wikipedia reviewers like it enough to leave it there. As new
references are found and such I'll be maintaining the article to make
sure it's up to date. that also goes for when new versions of XBLite
comes out and such.