Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cargo cult programming

Cargo cult programming

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This appears to be a dictionary definition, padded out with content on other subjects. The only source cited actually discussing the article topic is a hacker dictionary. The 'origin' section at minimum borders on WP:OR, and is mostly off-topic, while the 'Cargo cult software engineering' section starts with an explicit statement to the effect that it is off-topic. An online search for the article topic itself fails to locate the significant coverage in WP:RS necessary to establish notability: instead, we find a few blog entries and similar, along with instances of the phrase being used. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 17:30, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It's a well-known concept in software engineering. The Hacker's Dictionary is a reliable source for computing-related subjects, as is the book by Steve McConnell that is cited. Ample other sources are available, for example [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. It has received scholarly study as well: [6], [7], [8]. Easily meets WP:GNG. Jfire (talk) 18:18, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The first source you cite is completely and utterly wrong about the actual 'cargo cults' this supposed ritualised programming practice is being compared to (I could go into great detail, but just as a teaser, I'll note that documented 'cults' pre-date the aeroplane, never mind WW2, and that in as much as 'cargo' ever played a part, it was a relatively small part of what were actually complex indigenous political/religious reactions to the rapid social change and growing economic/political inequalities of colonialism. The anthropological literature on this phenomenon is extensive, and precisely none of it supports this reductionist 'stupid primitives' narrative). If that is a 'reliable source', what would an unreliable one look like? Same for the second. And so on. Most of the sources you link do little more than assert that 'cargo cult programming exists', and those that do define it through analogy based on a wrong-headed and frankly offensive counterfactual popular-culture trivialisation of movements and events documented within anthropology. A dictionary definition at best, repeated ad nauseum. If programmers think that using the term 'cargo cult' and then telling a fairy tale constitutes an actual definition of anything, that's their choice. I see no reason for Wikipedia to present their ritual incantations as based on fact... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Jfire's sources. Additionally, the article is (or at least should be?) about a concept, not the specific words "cargo cult programming" and "cargo cult software engineering", so I find the notion that "cargo-cult software engineering" is off-topic incorrect. It's clearly the same topic. ~ A412 ^talk! 19:07, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment: nom seems to have an agenda to WP:RGW. And while I feel for their position on the misappropriation of the term "cargo cult" to describe this concept in computer science / software engineering, this is the WP:COMMONNAME of this concept, and "Ritualistic incorporation of commonly used patterns that serve no purpose in programming" would not be a title useful to readers. ~ A412 ^talk! 06:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The Origin section as it stood was rewritten precisely to address the cultural misapprehensions that Andy is so keen to have addressed. It's quite the irony to insist that people refer to research that has refined the understanding of CCs, then declare it original research and off-topic when it is represented in the article! 2601:642:4600:BE10:7463:209D:F5A6:DF1F (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With hindsight my initial approach, aimed at rectifying the appalling misrepresentations of 'cargo cults' as it stood in the article, might not have been the most appropriate. If I'd taken more note of the paucity and inadequacy of sources being cited, rather than the utterly wrong-headed 'stupid brown people' narrative I saw there, I'd probably have nominated the article for deletion sooner. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:51, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Well, regardless of political arguments within the academic field of cultural anthropology were taking place in the 1990s-2000s (?), this does seem like a term used by computer programmers, and the sources support this. I do not really see what's wrong with the article. jp×g 🗯️ 02:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anthropology has been discussing and debating 'cargo cults' (a term going out of favour) since the 1950's, if not earlier. The debate is ongoing. As for 'terms', they generally belong in dictionaries. Wikipedia requires in-depth coverage of subject matter in multiple reliable sources. Not sources 'using' the term, but sources 'discussing' it in depth. All I'm seeing are sources which either take it as read everyone knows what they are referring to, or defining it through hand-waving analogy with popular-culture pseudoanthropology. The sources seem to be reliably vague, reliably useless, and/or reliably wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]