User talk:Blessed.meek

Welcome!

Hello, Blessed.meek, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Nick-D (talk) 08:44, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

November 2024

Hello, I'm DVdm. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Quadratic equation, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. - DVdm (talk) 08:46, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this requires a citation. The article already discussed the situation where a=0 (technically not a quadratic equation). If a=b=c=0 the equation becomes 0x^2+0x+0=0, which clearly has an infinite number of x values that satisfy it. Perhaps is needs additional clarification (I didn't think so) but not a citation. From a mathematical perspective this case is unimportant because it's not technically a quadratic equation. However, if you are writing code or solving some problem involving roots of quadratic equations it is good to cover all cases. Blessed.meek (talk) 00:18, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia does not agree about the non-requirement of a citation. The first line says: "a, b, and c represent known numbers, where a ≠ 0" and that part is backed by the given sources. I have never seen your note in the literature, so adding it would be a schoolbook example of wp:original research. If the note is correct and useful and noteworthy, it should be easy to find it in the literature, and it would be welcome. See wp:BURDEN and wp:DUE. Hope this helps. - DVdm (talk) 00:57, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not add or change content, as you did at Algebraic data type, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. DVdm (talk) 09:59, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for not signing in the talk page (I was in a hurry and haven't had much recent experience with Wikipedia). My changes were primarily introducing examples, starting with simple ones and them adding complexity. The article currently uses lists as the first example - they have a non-trivial sum and product, recursion, parametric polymorphism, a special syntax and the term *linked* list implies pointers but the implementation of ADTs is not discussed (I was intending to add a section on that). These examples need no citation. I re-ordered some of the existing material (eg, putting sums before products because the simplest kind of ADTs are enumerated types, which are sums), keeping the citations. The citation-related issue is that concerning the term "algebraic", where I said it come from maths and linked to an appropriate Wikipedia page that mentions algebras having a sum and product operation.

I am an expert on ADTs from a programming perspective (not so much the theory). I am a retired academic. I have taught many students about ADTs. I have published work on ADTs, including a paper describing a preprocessor that implements ADTs for C (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/spe.2407/abstract) and a very recent paper describing a programming language I am developing (https://www.mdpi.com/2674-113X/3/4/23). I think the current page is a mess (and I'm not alone). I would be happy to work on improving it but just rejecting my changes with a generic "needs citation" message is not encouraging. Blessed.meek (talk) 01:03, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By Wikipedia-design, our own expertise is not sufficient to just add content to articles. The new content must be backed by wp:reliable sources for two reasons: (1) verifiability, and (2) demonstrating notability. For some background and points of advice, see wp:Expert editors. I'm sure that the content, when formally supported by relevant reliable sources, will be accepted by the other editors of this particular page. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 07:44, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]