Talk:RE/flex

Computing Low‑importance

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Software: Computing Low‑importance

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Someone added a COI note to this article, but I don't know why. It states "A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject", a subject that I taught for 20 years at a research university.

In terms of personal disclosure, I clearly stated my name to the article to disclose my authorship and when I wrote RE/flex as a professor in my spare time. I released RE/flex as a free tool to use for constructing compilers and tokenizers. People and students suggested to put it on Wikipedia 7 years ago.

Over the past 7 years other people materially contributed to this open source project, including 22 open source contributors on GitHub. When something substantially changed in the project or was added to it, then I made a minor update to this article to align with the changes. Every such update justifies a version update. That is what the info box in the article is for.

Secondly, in terms of "employer disclosure", there is none, because this is not developed under an employer. I wrote it when I was a professor at FSU in my spare time. FSU does not own this project or copyright. I released this project as open source, to help students and others.

Thirdly, I don't get paid or compensated to post this article or to maintain it, nor do I get compensated to work on RE/flex. That is ridiculous to suggest.

With respect to neutrality, the article includes links and a list of references to related articles on Wikipedia, including a list of competing tools.

The Wikipdia article is 7+ years old with a few minor updates besides version bumps (as everyone else updates the software version).

The change history says you're the author of 90% of the page; as written it basically tells how nice RE/flex is, and presents it as a tutorial. You might take the time to read the Wikipedia guidelines, e.g., WP:N, WP:IS, WP:NPOV and of course WP:DOCTOR TEDickey (talk) 00:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

90% makes sense: if you look more carefully at the edits instead of just counting them, almost all edits over the past 7+ years are software release version bumps that I make every release iteration. What is your point? Should I not release new versions? Should I not update the release version info on Wikipedia? Or ask someone else to bump version info box in this article?

Please note that the article content is similar to other software/tool articles on Wikipedia, for example Re2c and Flex (lexical analyser generator) and Ragel and others, which also include release version bumps and tutorial-like examples, syntax, and feature overviews. All of these articles link to and reference papers written by the same author or same set of authors of the tool. The problem with this subject in general is that it rarely ever happens that independent publications are made by third parties about compiler tools. It is certainly a bit of a niche area. Yet, it is an important area with a long history. Every Computer Science student is taught this area of Compiler Construction, if not at least an introduction to the art of scanning and parsing methods and tools that is part of every Programming Language course.

There are no non-factual statements or personal opinions in this article, or judgmental wording, or embellishments, or handwaving, or unjust criticism of competing tools. I'm happy to update the article if there are sentences that are perceived differently. Basically, the sections are technical in nature and briefly explain what the tool does and (new) methods used, which are novel compared to Lex and Flex (for example). Robert van Engelen (talk) 02:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The topic has not established notability. As a single-purpose account, and (lacking notability), all that the reader can see is that you are using Wikipedia to promote your project (using Wikipedia to inform users of new versions is the same thing). In a quick check of your editing history, it appears that all of your edits have been done to promote your work. TEDickey (talk) 00:47, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am defending the time and effort made by many volunteers over the past 7 years who materially contributed to this open source project, including the 22 open source contributors on GitHub. When something substantially changed in the project or was added to it, then I made a minor update to this article to align with the changes.

Every update to the software when made by me and by other volunteer open source contributors justifies a version update. That is what the info box in the article is for. You seem intent to use this to mischaracterize the update history of this article when almost all my edits are minor edits to bump up the version info box.

I am not at all against improving the article according to Wikipedia guidelines, but your arguments and motivations are unsubstantiated. Robert van Engelen (talk) 14:07, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's not responding to the issue at hand. You have used Wikipedia for several years for promotional purposes, without addressing the program's notability. If you are unable to address this issue, the topic should be removed. TEDickey (talk) 11:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sources...[edit]

The topic needs reliable third-party sources which discuss this program. The existing non-primary sources serve only to provide background information, and do not support notability. By the way, comments from blogs, user testimonials and existence in package systems also do not support notability. I found none that are useful TEDickey (talk) 09:00, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]