Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Intermediate Perl

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 keep. Sandstein 05:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Intermediate Perl

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This is a how-to book for computer programmers learning Perl. There are many such books. The article lacks even one reliable secondary source WP:RS to establish notability WP:N as required by WP:GNG. Googling, I could not find reviews or other non-trivial mentions. Msnicki (talk) 21:16, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 00:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep I seem to remember in earlier discussion about book series a consensus that if some number of the series are notable, then it makes sense to keep them all. In this case, I think Learning Perl and Mastering Perl are both notable, so for completeness we should also have this page. However, I have been unable to find this discussion, thus the weakness of the keep. Another possibility would be to merge the three and redirect the individual titles, although I can't think of a ood name for the merged page. Francis Bond (talk) 10:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Every book deserves its own page on Amazon, not Wikipedia. The article gives no indication that the book is particularly notable, even among Perl enthusiasts. Bella the Ball (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As we found out in other O'Reilly AfDs, they are experts at collecting reviews on their books. The O'Reilly page for this one lists none, so it's fair to assume nothing significant exists. FuFoFuEd (talk) 23:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the problem with finding secondary sources for this book is that its title changed a few years ago: Learning Perl Objects, References & Modules (the original title) was very well received when it was published in 2003, and is an important book for Perl programmers, especially those on the learning curve. I've added referenced reviews from Perl Journal, Linux Journal and Slashdot. It's surprising that O'Reilly haven't linked to these reviews on their product page since, as FuFoFuEd notes, they are normally very good at that sort of thing. Gurt Posh (talk) 09:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the publisher had kept the same title and same authors, I'd agree, those reviews would establish notability. But it's not the same title and same authors and without a citation to connect the two books, I don't think these reviews count. Btw, I think the over-long quotes you added were inappropriate: The make the article read like an advertisement and the length is such that they probably violate fair use. Consequently, I've left the citations (identifying them as reviews of the original book) and deleted the quotes. Msnicki (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given the similarity of the the tables of contents of those two books, I'm willing to trust Gurt on his claim that this is a rebranded edition of LPOR&M. I don't get your comment about the change of authors? Only a third author (who was also a co-author for one of the editions of Learning Perl together with the other two) was added. Wether quoing the reviews is fair use would depend on the length of the original reviews and the quotations. The Slashdot quotation seems overly long and should have been paraphrased. The other two seem acceptable to me (unless the original review was only two or three sentences.) —Ruud 14:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What's not to get? One book had two authors, the other has three. 2 != 3. And my objection to the lengthy review quotes was BOTH that such long quotes raised fair use issues AND that the result read like an advertisement. Msnicki (talk) 14:32, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you weren't being serious here. There's a huge difference between a book having three totally difference authors vs. an additional being added in a new edition. This isn't uncommon, Introduction to Algorithms springs to mind. —Ruud 16:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up: Okay, I did find the link between the editions on the copyright page of the book on Amazon. But still, given the change in title and authorship, I'm not sure reviews of the first edition count unless we change the title of the article here on WP to match the original title of the book (which may explain the way the opening sentence use to read.) Msnicki (talk) 15:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough about trimming down the review quotes: a quote that short is OK under fair-use, but it did look a bit promo in the article (doubled it in size, looking at that diff again), so the short summary plus refs is more appropriate, thanks. Gurt Posh (talk) 16:30, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per reviews provided by Gurt Posh. —Ruud 14:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Great work catching the re-title. causa sui (talk) 00:15, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.