User talk:Guy Harris/Archives/2021/12

macOS Server Logo deletion

Sorry for any trouble! I uploaded a new and better icon for macOS Server, which was unfortunately deleted due to copyright problems; I had deleted the older logo which is now there and replaced it, and when my upload was deleted there was no icon. Sorry for any problems! Thanks for fixing this!

Leejordan9 ✉️ 🛠 00:29, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Short description

Thanks for mentioning Wikidata Short Descriptions. Honestly, I had no idea how to view them. But I just turned on that setting in my preferences. Now I see that the SD for the various N-bit computings is "Computer architecture bit width", which seems particularly obtuse. Maybe ordinary users will understand "computer architecture", but what will they make of "bit width", which is especially unhelpful since the word "bit" is already mentioned in the article titles -- presumably some clarification would be helpful. --Macrakis (talk) 23:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Macrakis: I've seen at least a couple of types of short descriptions - ones that say what type of thing the article describes, and ones that say what particular thing the article describes.

The "N-bit" items in Wikidata had a mix of items, from "computer architecture" (which they aren't "16-bit" isn't a computer architecture, it's the bit width of several different computer architectures), "instruction set architecture for a processor" (ditto), "4-bit word size, esp. in computer architectures" (reasonable, although I might say "data or address size", as not all of them are word sizes), "use of processors that have a word size of 31 bits" (no, the most common bit of 31-bitness is for addresses in a line of processors that have a word size of 32 bits), "discrete values integer in computer architecture" (what?), and "use of processors that have a word size of 64 bits" (OK, unlike the "of 31 bits" one).

"Short" is apparently important - the main use of the short descriptions appears to be in the Wikipedia mobile app, where it may be displaying the page on a smartphone, where the screen is narrow in the most commonly used mode, and the goal may be to keep it on one line. Having an item that's "what type of thing" rather than "what particular thing" can keep the length down; if the title of the article gives the "which particular thing" detail (as is the case for "N-bit"), the detail may not be necessary in the short description. Guy Harris (talk) 01:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

And it doesn't help that "N-bit" covers N-bit data word lengths and N-bit address sizes, and the articles may also discuss N-bit data paths and N-bit buses for machines with different word lengths. 31-bit computing doesn't talk about any systems with 32-bit data words; it mostly discusses 32-bit machines with 31-bit addressing (S/370-XA and Motorola 68012), and also mentions using the uppermost bit of a data item as a "boxed vs. unboxed" bit or a tag bit. Guy Harris (talk) 02:04, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree completely with all that. In fact, I was about to write it to you!

It is more than silly to put everything that is N bits long in a single article. If we were really to take that seriously, then the 4-bit article would include all architectures with 16 registers (since the register specifier is 4 bits), the 1-bit article might include indirect bits in instruction words, and the 6-bit article could include the byte size and offset fields of the PDP-10's LDB instruction.

When people speak of N-bit computing, they generally mean one of two things: the word size (which is generally the same as the usual register size) or the address size. And when they talk about the address size, they typically lump 31-bit with 32-bit, and 48-bit (x86) with 64-bit.

I'm not sure how to organize all this better. What are your thoughts? --Macrakis (talk) 15:10, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Sarcasm?

Hi Guy. It takes a lot of work to write an article, so to be rewarded with sarcasm is really unhelpful. I appreciate you do some great work editing, but if you want to make unhelpful comments, please consider what impact it has on other people.

The irony in IBM buying Peirce, was the division making the purchase (the Typewriter Division) was the same division who was previously added to the company by being purchased. There is indeed an irony there. AVandewerdt (talk) 01:08, 30 December 2021 (UTC)