Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Software Craftsmanship

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 no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 08:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Software Craftsmanship

"Notability is in question. There are no verifying sources or wiki pages linking to this one" Jadekorm (talk) 07:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - original research, non-notable, something like that ;-) ╟─Treasury Tag►contribs─╢ 08:20, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a new movement within the software industry. It has a manifesto: http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ and conferences: http://parlezuml.com/softwarecraftsmanship/ and http://www.mutuallyhuman.com/2008/12/19/software-craftsmanship-summit It is closely tied to movements like Extreme Programming and Agile both of which are considered notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ade oshineye (talk • contribs) 08:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I see new sources have been added or referenced in this discussion, but they are not independent as demanded by WP:NOTE. The issue is that this page lacks third party coverage and there is very little external discussion outside the proponents of the idea itself. - Jadekorm (talk) 16:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~Redirect to Software Engineering. Not a notable topic until such time as it has received significant coverage in reliable independent sources.--Michig (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Fore reliable independent sources, see books such as McBreen Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative Addison Wesley Professional 2001 or Hoover & Oshineye Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance For The Aspiring Software Craftsman O'Reilly (as yet unpublished in print form, but available online here), Robert C. Martin Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship Prentice Hall 2008. Clearly notable movement in the software development industry, attracting attention from major publishers. JulesH (talk) 10:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I also question whether those saying this is non-notable bothered to check the notability of the subject before saying so. Links to sites selling or about all three of those books above turn up in the first page of google web results searching on the title of the article. Finding sources for this is trivially easy. JulesH (talk) 10:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes I did bother...but is there anything to suggest this is anything more than another term for Software Engineering? I looked at the conference and I see nothing in the presentations that distinguishes this as a distinct field. McBreen's book seems to have coined the term, but there's little evidence that I can see of widespread recognition. It's just as easy to find Google hits for "Software construction", but I doubt that we should have a distinct article for that.--Michig (talk) 11:12, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Those sources are problematic. Except for McBreen, those authors themselves are signatories of the manifesto linked above. I think that prevents them from being adequate third party sources. And yes, I did research the subject before I submitted to AfD, so I apologize if there are glaring third party sources I missed. This article, however, has gone years without referencing them. - Jadekorm (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While the authors may not be independent from the movement, the publishers are, and it is the fact that mainstream publishers have chosen to publish books on the principles of this movement that establishes its notability.

Also, this non-independence argument can be made about almost any specialist topic. I mean, who has written about LALR parsers other than people who are intimately involved in computation linguistics? Of course the sources about this movement come from people who are involved in it. That's always the case with specialist topics. JulesH (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. You can delete this page if you like, but it's bad timing - this movement is gaining momentum, and the page will be back in some form or another before you know it -- MattWynne —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.69.58.104 (talk) 14:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- In such a case, it can be rewritten appropriately. However, WP:SPECULATION suggests we cannot make that determination at this time. - Jadekorm (talk) 17:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Lack of independent coverage, e.g. of the 2008 conference. MattWynne's comment above sums it up: the topic is not currently notable. If it's notable in the future, then there will abundant independent coverage to draw from. However, future prospects do not make a subject notable now. —C.Fred (talk) 17:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to software engineering until this becomes independently notable as a WP:NEOlogism. It's not there yet. THF (talk) 18:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC), clarified 19:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further clarification of my reasoning. 134 Google Books hits and 51 Gnews hits and a majority of them are referring to one or more of the books with the title, rather than the concept, and I didn't see any uses that automatically assumed that the reader understood what the term was referring to. It's still not widely accepted. That doesn't mean it doesn't merit a subsection in the software engineering article. THF (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- Comment. I just don't understand how a topic that has been the primary subject of books published by so many professional publishers can be considered non-notable. What's the problem? JulesH (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment after clarification. This is clearly not a neologism; we're talking about a phrase that has been used in the titles of several books since the original was published in 2001, and which has hundreds of hits in google books, google scholar and google news. This is a term in widespread use within the community it is aimed at. JulesH (talk) 19:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment More sources. Perhaps these, although less authoritative on the topic, will be seen as more independent, as their authors had no prior affiliation with the movement. [1]; McConnell Code Complete 2nd Edition Microsoft Press 2004; Janert Software Craftsmanship [book review], in Software Nov.-Dec. 2003, IEEE; McBreen's book won a Dr. Dobbs Journal "Jolt Award" for the ideas it suggested[2]. JulesH (talk) 19:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- More: [3] [4] JulesH (talk) 19:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I became aware of the Software Craftsmanship idea less than a year ago, although it echoed a lot of things that I had been thinking and practising (where practicable) for decades. Evidently it's an idea whose time has come. It would be rather counterproductive to delete the page now. Software Craftsmanship is an identifiable movement within software practice in general - simply redirecting to Software Engineering would not do it justice at all. The movement centres around taking pride in all aspects of the work: the tools, the materials, the techniques - and ways to perfect this mastery, which borrow heavily from traditional crafts like printing and from oriental martial arts disciplines. -- Immo Huneke
Keep. I believe JulesH has done an excellent job illustrating the notability of the topic. – 74 02:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as sourcing appears to be very solid (4 books, including one from O'Reilly, which I think of as the single most important publisher in this domain). I don't see an independence problem here as people who agree on a topic each writing books that found publishers is more important than they all signed a statement about the topic. Hobit (talk) 03:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The article is over 3 years old and describes an important idea that has been the subject of several books over the last several years. Robert0122 (talk) 16:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There is a distinction between Software Engineering and Software Craftsmanship, and it is the difference between them that is interesting. Ever since reading the books mentioned above, I have referred to myself as a Software Craftsman - it's on my resume! Steve Donie —Preceding undated comment added 21:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC).[reply]
Keep. The topic has become a common point of discussion amongst software developers and clearly those promoting it (including myself) are mimicking the path of Agile Development. It is important because it's distinctive feature is that it promotes a more crafts-based approach than a scientific/engineering approach to software development, which is a radical departure from the prevailing methodologies of the latter 20th century, yet an obvious one given the degree to which most software is built to interact with humans.Falkayn (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete I see a page with sources relating to the article title, though not necessarily its content. The defense seems to be argument by fiat or by anecdote, with most of the defenders admitting to WP:COI. That's specifically a problem in discussions like this. The problem is that without third party verification, this is a vanity page. - 68.20.1.120 (talk) 07:08, 12 March 2009 (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.