User talk:Waldorf

Appropriate Tasks

The recent turmoil concerning the structure task brings up a basic question. What are appropriate (and by inference, inappropriate) tasks for Rosetta Code?

Is Rosetta Code only for tasks appropriate to scripting languages? One comment complained about a task dealing with data representation issues being too low level. It is my understanding that Rosetta Code intends to explore language syntax, capabilities, libraries, and structure through the implementation of specific tasks. Some tasks already exist that are best implemented with SQL or some variation thereof. Why, then is a task focused on representation issues out of bounds.

I agree that the structure task was ill-defined. Is it appropriate to define a new task to demonstrate language capabilities regarding specification of data representations?

I have no problem with exploring data representation. However, I firmly believe that tasks need to be modularized. A task that explores something needs to be created in such a way that prevents it from hindering the completion of other portions of the task. In practice, this means that a task needs to focus on as few things as possible. A task that focuses on data representation needs to be about data representation.

Modularization is important because we need article titles to be representative of what the article is about. An article named "Custom data types" is not a good name for an article about sharing data between multiple languages, while "Share data between C and another language" would be. --Short Circuit 15:44, 26 February 2007 (EST)

I am thinking about creating a number of well-contained tasks related to data representation. Some languages are strongly typed, some are weakly typed, some are statically typed, and some are dynamically typed. Each of the combinations of those attributes provides different abilities and approaches to defining data. There already exist tasks for defining structures and classes. I would like to add other tasks: Demonstrate how to determine or set the address of a variable. Demonstrate how to determine or set the minimum size (memory footprint) of a variable or data type. Demonstrate how to control the memory layout of fields within a data structure.

Finally, I would like to develop a task to demonstrate how to make a data type that acts like a primitive data type but has programmer-defined characteristics such as a limited range of valid values. This task would include a demonstration, or discussion if the capability is built into the language, of how to implement the required range checking.

Sounds good to me. I'm not holding you back. I don't want to hold anyone back, really; This site grows as people add tasks. Of all the content on Rosetta Code, only around 10% was originally mine. --Short Circuit 19:17, 26 February 2007 (EST)