Talk:OpenEdge Advanced Business Language/Archive 1

Notability of Progress 4GL

This may be a weakly written entry, but that doesn't make the language insignificant. With over 5 million users of applications written in the language and over $5 billion in annual sales for the companies application partners, the language is empirically much more significant than many trendier ones that have only academic followings. Tamhas 22:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned that an editor is concerned. I've checked every other 4GL language and a fair number of the progreamming languages in general and this is the only one I could find tagged. I don't understand why. Granted, the article itself is a bit biased against Progress, but there could be any number of reasons for that.

Greg.Higgins@peg.com 21:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing in the page itself to indicate what is so notable about the language (was it the subject of multiple studies of 4GL languages? any truly unique features in the language (I don't see any)? non-trivial references in multiple independent sources? etc.). Also, the lack of tagging in other pages alone does not mean that this page should not be tagged. (WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS) Saligron 07:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You may say that the lack of tagging doesn't mean it shouldn't be applied here, but I find it as evidence of editor bias. No language that is used by tens of thousands of programmers every single day should be eliminated before dozens of other obscure languages which are seldom used. How can Wikipedia be encyclopedic if you're ignoring a major development language. Granted it isn't the world's largest development language, but it does have a significant community. To keep it out is to deny its existence. What are you folks trying to do, re-write history? I find this whole process mindboggling. I think you need to find other things to worry about. I find this whole denial of my professional life orwellian to say the least. Greg.Higgins@peg.com 06:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I just came to Wikipedia to look this language up 141.213.66.102 15:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I came here to look this up too. 209.134.159.221 16:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain what made you try to find the language in Wikipedia instead of reference manuals, etc.? This could help explain in the article what makes the language notable. Saligron 02:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

People want to know what a thing is. If you're a techie, like myself and most of my on-line community, you go to various places to find things. Sometimes I google; however, knowing that Wikipedia has an extensive collection of articles about programming languages, if someone told me they had worked in a language I was unfamiliar with, I might look here. Greg.Higgins@peg.com 06:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually surprised that it's so hard to find references to make this "notable". I programmed in Progress 4GL in the mid-1990s and Progress was a pretty big company back then...but now I'm googling around and it seems to have been abandoned. Personally, I'd just rather see a "Progress 4GL" section under the main Progress Software article. I'll look for some proper references but if nobody's using it...well, maybe it just needs to be a section rather than an article. (on the other hand, if the Pick operating system is considered "notable", I think Progress 4GL should also be notable :-) Thomas Dzubin _Talk 02:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have always considered Progress to be a notable 4GL. When thinking about 4GLs it is one that always comes to mind. I was first made aware of it in the early 90s when my then employers considered selecting it as a development tool. It lost out to Ross Systems' Gembase then. Lately it has new relevance for me personally, as my current employers are to be taken over by a Progress-using software house. That's why I came here today, and was surprised to see the article marked for deletion.

Now, I have since checked the deletion policy, and honestly cannot find that this article matches criteria for deletion based on lack of notability, so will remove the notice. Tindwcel 15:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Please explain your removal of this notice, other than "I have always considered Progress to be a notable 4GL", with out addressing the concern by improving, copyediting or sourcing the article. Even though removing the notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. there has been a considerable amount of concern regarding Notability of Progress 4GL, possibly consensus is needed--Hu12 10:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The original notice stated;

"You may remove this message if you improve the article, or if you otherwise object to deletion of the article for any reason."

I came here looking for information about Progress. I was glad the article was here. I was surprised to see the deletion notice and removed it because I objected, as I was entitled to do. Again, according to the notice, my reason did not matter. Progress *is* notable, although the article does fail to establish this. The article should be improved, not deleted. Sadly, I am not the person to improve it, as again, I came here *looking* for information about Progress.

Why have you now added a different notice? The current one says "this notice must not be removed". Is this because the original notice was wronly added, or because you wish to deny us the right to remove the notice, which I exercised first time round? Tindwcel 14:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It's because it's going through a different process. Proposed deletions can be contested by anyone by simply removing the notice, while the articles for discussion process must go through discussion before deciding whether to keep or delete the article, until which the notice must not be removed. Saligron 02:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

For people who know nothing about Progress 4GL, the article as it is clearly fails WP:Notability due to its lack of independent reliable sources. In fact, simply reading the article gives me little idea on how the language is notable, i.e. why anyone other than Progress 4GL users would care about the language (never mind the lack of sources backing up notability). There's a vague mention about "commercial success", but this doesn't really tell me anything. Have tagged this page as such.

BTW, is it normal to call the language just "Progress"? There's no mention of this in the article, so when "Progress" appears I get confused momentarily on whether it means the language or the company. Saligron 03:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The article lacks sources and should be improved. Tindwcel 09:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

People who work with the language generally refer to it was "Progress". I worked with the language for 6 years. Many companies still use it. I don't understand why people are talking about deleting it. Surely one of the purposes of an encyclapaedia is to document little-known things? If we delete Progress we’ll have to delete other obscure programming environments like Lisp. User:Geraldkelly 14:07, 23 February 2007 (GMT)

Lisp is a really bad example. Its article clearly states how the language is notable, and there are a whole lot of third-party sources (and implementations, in fact) in the literature. It's used (or was used) extensively in artificial intelligence, and influenced the design of numerous other languages (with numerous references in the literature). I have no knowledge of Progress 4GL, so I have no idea if it even comes close in terms of notability (and the article doesn't help me with this at all). And WP:NN#Notability is not popularity, not to mention the lack of specifics for the popularity claim. Saligron 02:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Edits to the article

Markthompson wi 02:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC) Added historical references and commentary on the various Progress Versions. Any of the regular PEG contributors would be more qualified than myself to speak on the various points. I'll probably drop some language examples in here at some point for comparison against SQL or BASIC for example. Added some references and the new book by John Saad as well. The article was also flagged for prospective "TBD" type of language in the description of changes.

Links I added a link to The OpenEdge Hive http://www.oehive.org/ , which is a significant source of downloadable tools, code samples, and whitepapers related to this language, but someone seems to think this is inappropriate. There should also be a link to PSDN ... I would add it, but I dislike doing things and then having them erased. Tamhas 22:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Question for Editor Hu12

I'm something of a newbie so forgive some some of the failings of "inexperience" regarding my additions here. However, what specifically might you consider notable, for instance vs. the Awk or PICK or some other less than popular language.

Could you perhaps provide a reference to something which exists in another language wiki which does not exist here?

I am genuinely interested in helping this have it's own niche in ths scheme of things, as it has been a relatively popular language for business application use for about 20 years.

Certainly examples of code be appropriate considering this is a language but would that be sufficient - a comparison/contrast vs. some other language?

As far as published media is concerned the Progress community is rather tightly held and collectively somewhat - shy - so there is a definite shortage of such but no more so than the published books exclusively dedicated to "Awk" for example.

Markthompson wi 03:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Whats needed is criteria establishing WP:NOTE. This has been another editors concern as well. I see your enthusiastic, and by no means am i attempting to deter you from contributing good context. However, since the first question of notability arose, most citations (by others as well) have not been multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself. thanks--Hu12 04:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Progress 4GL to 4GL developed by Progress Software Corporation

Markthompson wi 20:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC) Hu12, I certainly see your point in so far as there are no derivative works other than Kassabgi, which really isn't quite derivative but was is/was published by Que. Would it be - possibly a good idea to consider this as an wiki sub-section to the [Progress Software Corporation] - "4GL Language Developed by..." type of entry.

I certainly found other languages with similar levels of notability / historical use (Snobol etc).