Talk:Factor (programming language)

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Notability

Is this language really notable? There isn't much information about it besides from their own site, a few blogs, and random content aggregators. 64.191.188.252 (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is notable. Factor is the product of 6 years of work, is the work of over 30 people and has been mentioned in at least two academic papers. It's not helpful to go around to articles about programming languages and call them non-notable. LittleDan^talk 02:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How long it has been around is irrelevant. How many people it is the work of is irrelevant (my website is the work of hundreds of people, but it does not have its own Wikipedia article). Academics invent programming languages all the time; most of them are non-notable. I'm not convinced Factor is notable.

Furthermore, I don't appreciate the hostility of your tone. Assume good faith. I put all of those tags because Wikipedia is overrun with pet project programming languages that don't really meet the notability criteria. I have placed the tag back on this article, please do not remove it without better evidence. 64.191.188.252 (talk) 15:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If everything is irrelevant, then you are just trolling Wikipedia. And for the people who take you serious: One evidence is "Factor includes a large standard library". As can be seen here: http://docs.factorcode.org/content/article-vocab-index.html --Stesch (talk) 08:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have restored the notability tag. After some more googling I still have not found much of what I would call reliable, secondary sources about Factor. Besides the Factor homepage there is the Factor mailing list, there is the planet-factor Atom/RSS aggregator, there is a mostly empty subreddit, there is some content at the concatenative wiki. Factor gets mentioned quite a bit at the programming subreddit. Factor seems to get mentioned here and there, and the standard library does look impressive. I am now borderline convinced of the notability of the language. However, I still would like to see some secondary sources added to the article, if only to avoid having this discussion again. —Tobias Bergemann (talk) 11:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google is interested: Google Tech Talk "Factor: an extensible interactive language" (Link in the "External links" list.) --Stesch (talk) 13:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed that the notability of the language had been questioned on this very page before but that that discussion had apparently been seen as "useless and harmful". —Tobias Bergemann (talk) 13:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Factor has influenced at least two other programming languages, Cat and Concat. Cat has an article whose notability is not questioned, even though it has had much less code written in it and has a much less developed implementation. Concat was described in a paper published in July at an international computer science conference. Both of these are now cited in the article. It seems that these should imply notability. LittleDan^talk 16:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "Cat has an article whose notability is not questioned". Well, the notability of Cat could be questioned as the article has very much the same problem as this article as there are no references to secondary sources that would help establish notability.

Don't get me wrong: the technology behind Factor and its VM are impressive technological achievements. Still, I found it hard to find articles on Factor that were not written by either Slava Pestov, Phil Dawes, or Daniel Ehrenberg, who in my eyes are too close to Factor to be considered secondary sources.

Anyway, as I wrote above I am now convinced that Factor is notable. I won't revert if anybody removes the notability tag from the article again. — Tobias Bergemann (talk) 07:28, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that the Factor article has been declared non-notable again. I don't understand why this is. There have not been more secondary sources on Factor, but there are now peer-reviewed academic publications on Factor in addition to the secondary mentions that have already existed. How has Factor become less notable in this time? LittleDan^talk 19:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interpreted language?

Quote: "Factor was originally only interpreted, but it can now also be compiled. The compiler is written entirely in Factor, and it does not output standalone executables but rather merely a faster image."

So in other words....the compiler optimizes the code, which is still in Factor? Or am I missing something here? Bjelleklang - talk Bug Me 23:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, the compiler converts Factor into machine code (currently supporting PPC, x86, x86-64 and ARM), which is nevertheless stored in the image with non-compiled Factor code. Maybe the wording was unclear. LittleDan^talk 17:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History

should a section on history be added to the article? I heard that factor was made with the intention of being used for a game http://factorcode.org/pics/snap2.png 203.158.58.75 (talk) 09:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ideone

External link suggestion: Ideone due to WP:CONFLICT.

To the best of my knowledge Ideone is the only online compiler available for the Factor programming language. Online compilers might be of programmers interest due to several reasons (mobile devices usage, forum integration, programmers testing, programmers forum discussions) it does not google well. Ideone does not require registration. Some third party site statistics: xmarks, alexa, kuszi (talk) 13:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]