Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Text Executive Programming Language

Text Executive Programming Language

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Fails WP:GNG and WP: NOTWEBHOST. We are not a website for hosting documentation, and this subject is not notable. Either of these being true is sufficient for deletion. The Knuth reference is a passing mention, and other citations appear to reference manuals for the language itself. There was a PROD more than a decade ago and the article's creator removed it. HyperAccelerated (talk) 17:53, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: This seems mostly true but there is "Introduction to the TEX language - Part I" in the references section, which being in a magazine might not just be a reference guide. Mrfoogles (talk) 18:01, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That reference can be found on Google Books. The author mentions that they've served as an advisor in the development of the language. It's not an independent source, and even if it is, we generally need multiple sources to establish notability. HyperAccelerated (talk) 18:16, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 18:30, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:00, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote the TEX article. I used the language while working at the GE Telecommunications and Information Processing Operation in Schenectady NY in the 1980s. GE was a big customer of Honeywell.

TEX was a software product offering for timesharing from Honeywell that we used to test each new OS release. it came with a large body of testing code and an application support library known as Texas. Bob Bemer was a Texan, a noted computer scientist and an evangelist for Tex.

My understanding is that both TEX and AWK were created around the same time using regular expressions and line editing ideas from Multics, Unix and GCOS operating systems. The notion of extending a line editor with programmability like TEX is quite novel.

Bob Bemer gave a talk on it at the HLSUA conference showcasing a screen editor written TEX. He als wrote about it on his blog which is long gone and a three part article for Interface Age. Bitsavers has a downloadable copy of the TEX manual. The interface age magazines can be found on the Internet Archive site.

Currently, there is no implementation running other one running on some old Honeywell 6000 timesharing service somewhere in the world. The original developers are also long gone and Bob Bemer died some years ago.

It would be a shame to lose this small piece of computer history. It was the primary reason I wrote the article. Jedishrfu (talk) 00:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So do you have sources that shows that this subject meets WP: GNG? I'm uninterested in hearing about anything else, and it's very disrespectful to inject paragraphs upon paragraphs upon paragraphs of your own off-topic nonsense into this discussion. Blogs, first-party manuals, and mirrors of the software do not count towards notability, and I'm not going to waste my time fishing around for some magazine for you. HyperAccelerated (talk) 01:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]