Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Data exchange language

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 merge to Data exchange. v/r - T P 16:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Data exchange language

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

there is no formal definition of a "data exchange language". Any file format (data format) can be used for data exchange (and storage). XML are occassionally coined as "data exchange languages", but this is only informal. Formally, they are structured, extensible markup languages with generic parsers available, and this wide availability of compatible parsers makes them suitable for data exchange. There obviously are benefits for using formal languages in data exchange, but this by no means warrants an article. The contents maybe could/should be merged somewhere and the article replaced with a redirect to a more appropriate place. Chire (talk) 08:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is an "easy to use" term, but it doesn't actually convey any meaning beyond "language used for data exchange", which doesn't warrant the need for an article, at most for an wiktionary entry "Computer language used in the exchange of data". It doesn't even mean designed for data exchange. The article is also essentially orphaned. Neither XML or YAML link to it - they use the much more precise terminology of being a markup language. As such, this page is essentially a WP:CRYSTAL attempt at defining a term that is occasionally used, but only informally. (Amazon.com gives me 0 hits when searching for "data exchange language" with quotes) --Chire (talk) 08:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Matthew Thompson ^{talk to me bro!} 08:47, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge or redirect (to Data exchange?) The phrase is used often enough (and with a standard enough, if informal, meaning not to be unduly ambiguous) to be a natural search term, and the use for data exchange of at least some of the languages concerned is verifiable (in the Wikipedia sense) and should be mentioned somewhere. But that doesn't have to be in this article. (Note: I recently deprodded the article, but more or less for the reasons above rather than any belief that the article should be kept as is.) PWilkinson (talk) 13:36, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per PWilkinson. Seems like a good solution, particularly given the brief nature of both articles. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As of the many supporters of merge, I've gone ahead and rewritten a section ong Data exchange languages in the Data exchange article. Any objects to replacing the existing Data exchange language article with a redirect? --Chire (talk) 11:56, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good - so far as I am concerned, go ahead. PWilkinson (talk) 00:13, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge as above Stuartyeates (talk) 05:47, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've gone ahead and put the redirect in place, thus essentially closing this AfD with a result of "merge". I'm not sure from the instructions how to completely / properly close this AfD though. --Chire (talk) 07:29, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Side note: I did not merge the article, but actually rewrite a new section covering the same topic for the existing article. As such, this actually isn't a merge, but a redirect, is that correct? So I guess the "Afd-merge from" template actually is/was inappropriate... I merged the topic, not the contents. --Chire (talk) 07:37, 26 September 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.