Talk:LOLCODE

Sources

I'm going to request a temporary extension as I correct this article. As a Wikinews administrator, I can understand the rationality behind {{prod}}ing it. This isn't the first time this article has been suggested for deletion, however I'm not going to let it die without a fight (I have been fighting the last two months, anybody notice User:Terinjokes/LOLcode?). I feel that this programming language should remain in Wikipedia, as it is a valid language (there are parsers for it), and is on par with other languages on Wikipedia (IMHO) such as GEMBASE(which merely lists Ross Systems as it's source). Terinjokes 17:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge/split

Looking into this, it would seem content from an older stub has been merged into Lolcat, so a split from there back here may be appropriate. (It also gives a source (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4862013.html) which should help source this article, and there's a separate source for the hello world program; I've looked at it and although it's not a particularly large mention, it shows notability for this in my mind.) One ironic thing here is that I can't tell for certain that this is what happened; although I'm an admin here, I can't check the deleted history at the moment because I'm logged in with my non-admin account for security reasons. Most of the other top Google hits seem to be blogs, but it seems quite possible that more sources may be found. ais523

The "developers", if you wish, of LOLCODE vocalize that while based on LOLcat, LOLCODE is different. Since LOLCODE is based off of LOLcat, it deserved at least a bluelink in that article, but by no means should a programming language be in the same article about cats doing crazy things and talking like gamerz. The old stub was deleted, because everyone seems to fear that Wikimedia is suddenly running of of disk space (or more officially, it seems, it was "un-encyclopedic"; did you know that until after his death, the print editions of Encyclopedia Britannica didn't have an entry for "Steve Irwin"). That said, I believe LOLCODE has a number of third party references (You guys do read Digg, right?). Although I've been really busy lately, I will do my best to contribute to Wikipedia again, through this article (You do realize it was unfriendly things like this that drove me away from Wikipedia in the first place? You guys say this is the free encyclopedia and that anyone can edit... Is it really hurting you if a small article about a funny, goofy, somewhat stupid programming languages exists? Terinjokes 04:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, all he was saying is it wouldn't hurt to split off the newly restored lolcode article from the content that was formerly merged into lolcat. That said, it's too late now and there's only about one line of data that you didn't cover here. Given coverage of the variety of implementations of lolcode interpreters and compilers and given coverage of the source from lolcats and the other sources cited below, this'll work just fine. Note that the reason the old stub was deleted was the lack of available reliable sources (there were few at the time of the initial AfD and DRV) - an unsourced article should normally be improved to meet WP:RELY and WP:NOTE, as is plainly under way here. Good job, and I'll try to help more in mainspace on the morrow. MrZaius^talk 05:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources, part deux

Additional sources from the DRV: the subject of a Microsoft joke and Media coverage of that. It was also apparently mentioned at linux.com(another page linking to it, which might be an RS in itself) , although that article seems to have been deleted for some reason. It has been the subject of academic lectures at Australian National University - Given by User:L. MrZaius^talk 12:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I've redirected this to Lolcode, the proper title. If you guys gave your opinion on the DRV, it would be appreciated, and would help get the proper article restored and in shape faster. --Lucid 13:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

A newly rewritten article doesn't require a full DRV. Removing this article via redirect, which, by the way, I had no hand in writing, rather than improving it and moving it over lolcode w/an admin's assistance, seems like it would have been preferable. There was nothing procedurally wrong with the initial AfD or DRV, other than the pesky way people ignored Gracenotes' questions about redirecting rather than deleting. Note also that, barring its deletion, rving the redirect at lolcode and the link to here at lolcat (assuming they were done before redirecting this page, which your edit summaries seem to imply) were largely negative edits, IMHO. The time would have been far better spent integrating your sources here. MrZaius^talk 01:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Move/edit history restoration

Once we get this up to a point where it'd pass muster, should it be moved to lolcode as User:L has repeatedly suggested, or should it remain at LOLCODE? Also, is there a clean way to preserve prior edits there? MrZaius^talk 05:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any idea where L got that notion. From the official site, which is titled "home - LOLCODE":

Programming the LOL way.
All LOLCats, LOL, ALL CAPS.

Should be left here and the old stuff probably ought to be moved here - At least the oldAFD/DRV template. MrZaius^talk 05:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen it referenced as just LOLcode or lolcode, from reliable sources, and since it isn't an acronym it's generally better to have it be lower case. I don't really care either way, though --lucid 14:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that article title should be Lolcode. While the site owners do encourage special treatment, a comparison could be made to the MoS entry about trademarks: ignore said treatment and use the standard rules of English instead. This means using upper case for initialisms (unless the initialisms are commonly used in lower case), and normal capitalization for everything else. The reason why LOLCODE is in upper-case is to emulate lolcat captions; the article title need not emulate lolcat captions as well, in my opinion. (The best way to preserve edits would be with a history merge, by the way.) Gracenotes^T § 04:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems to go the other way in technical articles, however. Note the frequent use of {{lowercase}} in similar articles and articles for various applications. Owner's plainly going for a pseudo-acronym feel, and, given the nature of the product and the all-caps code syntax, it makes a fair bit of sense. That said, doesn't matter a whole lot one way or the other. Also, the edit summary is at least available now for both. If someone wants to put the work in, great, but there's not a whole lot to be gained from it at this point, unless we this move back over lolcode. MrZaius^talk 05:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've merged the two edit histories. --kingboyk (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Useful historical links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lolcode&oldid=135935389 Last pre-AfD version of lolcode (CsD'd recreation was apparently the basis for this article)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Lolcode&oldid=136371453 Comments from Talk:Lolcode on June 6th that were deleted shortly after AfD closure
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Lolcode&oldid=136121866 Comments from Talk:Lolcode prior to AfD closure

There's not a whole lot here, but it's interesting all the same. MrZaius^talk 17:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Syntax

I don't know where the original author got the syntax, but the main page says something different...."KTHXBYE" is used to exit loops, as is "IM OUTTA YR LOOP"... I don't think we have a very good consensus.--Huo Ma Ke 18:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It appears that the second program that prints 1 through 10 uses KTHXBYE to end the program, not exit the loop. If code were put after the loop, it probably would not execute according to the syntax described. It should use GTFO instead. Could someone who has used this language confirm and correct that code? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.24.192.139 (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

there is a bug in example 3, it displays numbers 1-11 instead of 1-10 (as the loop ends when the var is BIGGER than 10, so it ends when it reaches 11, and the line above the condition is displaying the var, so 11 is displayed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.105.25.225 (talk) 14:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

CAN HAS STDIO? - Incorrect

If LOLCODE is really a .NET language, then CAN HAS STDIO? would not work because I/O functions are provided by the System.IO namespace, not stdio.h or iostream.h. --208.138.31.76 (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not solely (nor primarily or originally) a .NET language. 74.74.227.114 (talk) 12:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I realize the futility of replying to you 2 years later... but.. you're very confused. stdio.h is not what makes printf work, it just happens to contain a line like: int printf(const char*, ...);. Assuming that this language would or should work the same way or drawing parallels to a C compiler or .NET is completely meaningless. Likely it's called "stdio" simply because whoever came up with the thing just happened to call it that, not that there is anything magical about that name or that it ought or ought not to correlate with some other library. 174.21.7.133 (talk) 02:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Nah, every .NET language uses the same framework, including specifically named libraries like System.IO, so the original poster is correct (though he may be wrong about LOLCODE actually being a .NET language). Equinox ◑ 17:22, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

appropriateness

I just want to say, that after 30 years of programming, "KTNXBYE" has become my hands down favorite command of all time, because it made me laugh so hard when I first encountered it. Thank you to the author of LOLCODE! There really IS some "LOL" in LOLCODE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.91.37 (talk) 21:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

is this sort of an article even necessary? does this not qualify as indiscriminate collection of information? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.165.158 (talk) 12:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Not really, indiscriminate etcetera concerns the scope of an article. LOLCODE is the only one of its kind - that I know of, at least - among esoteric programming languages, making it a representation of one extreme of what can be done with syntax. That's handy. It can also be useful to sociologists, programmers seeking inspiration, memetics or whatever that is called... these things tend to creep up on you.
Anyway, if you're concerned about the frivolity of this article, I say that Wikipedia has no greater advantage than serious articles on ridiculous topics. That is an edge that no other reference work can match: we alone have the manpower and scope. If it's our dignity that worries you, then I'm afraid that we have Jimbo Wales on record referring to this project as a completely insane idea, so there's not much of that around to save :P --Kizor 21:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability is what decides whether an article stays or goes, not some crazy wikipedia philosophy. Ninja337 (talk) 00:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

And the deletionists that have descended on Wikipedia have a crazy philosophical interpretation of notability that is tearing Wikipedia apart. This shouldn't even need to be debated. 206.196.158.130 (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Well I’ve just found this article informative and thought provoking. It is also hilarious, but we aren’t deleting comedians from Wikipedia for that crime are we? Clearly deletion is entirely unconscionable and would be swiftly restored by this contributor. nemo (talk) 12:17, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

DO NOT WANT DELETION!

KEEP THIS PLZ lol this programing language is so funny! please don't delete this! Costest (talk) 22:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC) KEEP this page kplxthx 86.159.20.246 (talk) 18:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Should this be deleted?

We might as well recognize "mudkip" "desu" etc as vital articles and make them pages of their own. --Dicttrshp (talk) 21:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)Plus the only arguments against deleting it are "but it's funny" (see above)

Not so. The main argument for retaining this article is that the subject is notable, as is demonstrated by the third party coverage that is cited in the article. The Internet culture Wikiproject has classified the article as mid-importance, so there is at least one community within Wikipedia that agrees that it is notable. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:18, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

SNUSP was deleted, maybe since it is not funny, even though it is notable as other esolangs (and more than LOLCODE I think, but how to prove it?); moreover, when I said that to a wikipediaer, he answered that there's a wiki for esolangs... so nothing's lost... then nothing's gained by wp. --Ittakezou0 (talk) 17:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

One passing reference in an online CNN article doesn't make it notable. The only people keeping this article up are the few people who waste their time coding in this.Ninja337 (talk) 00:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

garbage page imo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.64.75.50 (talk) 14:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Click 'random page' a dozen times and you'll find that most pages on wiki are garbage pages. IOW different people have different ideas of what's garbage, and for numerous pages there are many people that don't value them. I'm all for keeping this one. Tabby (talk) 06:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

As an example of the possibilities of syntax, and probably the only form of Literate Programming with a patois, this article is indispensable. Ignore the inherent humour of the subject – if Wikipedia covers Brainfuck it must cover LOLCODE. nemo (talk) 12:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Too much code, not enough prose

I'm tired of articles about programming languages being written as a combination of technical manuals and annotated source. This needs considerable rewriting to present the aspects of the language without relying on the reader having studied imperative programming languages for several years. I'm going to re-tag the examples section for rewrite unless a better rationale than "good", "relevant" or "useful" is forthcoming. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:17, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

If you want to rewrite some or all of the article then by all means be bold and go for it. But just tagging it is pointless, especially if no-one else agrees it needs a rewrite. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:25, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Tagging adds the page to the appropriate cleanup categories, which brings it to the attention of others and keeps it on my radar. It is not "pointless", and cleanup tags shouldn't be removed out of hand if the issue remains. Do you have a better rationale for leaving the section as an opaque dump of source code? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the examples section is self evidently not an "opaque dump of source code". It has four short code examples (they actually come from the LOLCODE home pages]) with brief comments and explanation. Other esoteric programming language articles have code examples (see Shakespeare (programming language) and INTERCAL), and they are a useful way of providing some insight into a language's structure. Wikipedia is not a textbook, so we are not aiming to teach the language to a reader, but I do think it helps the general reader to actually see some examples of the language that is being discussed.

Actually, I am not sure I understand what you are suggesting here. Are you proposing that the code examples should be removed ? Or are you saying that the associated explanations need to be longer or clearer ? Gandalf61 (talk) 10:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Ideally the article should have as little code as possible. The only really interesting thing about LOLCODE's syntax is that it uses lolcat pidgin for its keywords; it's not a particularly unusual imperative language aside from that. A clue would be look at our articles on various natural languages - they don't focus on the syntax. That's where we should be going with this article. I'll try to work on this more at some point (which is what the tag was there to remind me of). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't follow your analogy between natural language articles and programming language articles - these are two very different fields. The computer science draft MOS says that a programming language article should include "A basic introduction to the language syntax (including some code samples)". It highlights Objective Caml as an exemplar of this type of article; this article includes multiple code examples. As far as I can see, LOLCODE conforms to this style guideline. If you disagree with this guideline, you could perhaps start a discussion at its talk page or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

"A basic introduction" is one point in six of the guidelines; it should not take up a plurality (or indeed even outright majority) of the article. The Python article is superb, and contains a bare minimum of raw syntax. The BASIC article could do with just having the Examples appendix deleted, which would make it a better article for little loss. The OCaml article is someone showing off their programming abilities, and is pretty awful for the reason (really - an example on the birthday paradox? An example which needs an article to properly explain the premise?). I've left a note on the draft MoS's talk saying much the same. I don't see why we can't take the approach the Python article takes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason that the main Python article Python (programming language) contains so few code examples is that they have been factored out into a separate article Python syntax and semantics, presumably to keep to main article to a manageable size. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the main article doesn't miss them one bit, and the offshoot article is the predicable mix of editorial opinion, show-off code and overly instructional examples. I'd rather more articles looked like the former and less like the latter. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree this should be rewritten, it looks like a tongue-in-cheek instruction manual at the moment. --Dicttrshp (talk) 16:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the article contradicts itself. It says loops have no conditions, then presents a code segment which includes a loop counter. Not being a LOLCODE expert, I don't know which is correct, but someone should fix it. Lizard sf (talk) 17:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ridicolous thoughts

It sounds ridicolous to me that such a language had no consensus for deletion, while SNUSP had! I want to keep both of course... but sadly SNUSP was deleted. --Ittakezou0 (talk) 16:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Source code formatting

Wow, I simply can't believe Wikipedia has a separate source code formatting style for LOLCODE... JIP | Talk 19:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

---

OMG THIS CODE IS HILARIOUS! --190.158.184.192 (talk) 07:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Turing Completeness

To prove that a language is Turing complete, you only have to prove that it can emulate another Turing complete system. Since brainfuck is turing complete, a brainfuck interpreter in LOLCODE is emulating a turing complete system, thus LOLCODE is turing complete. Q ^{T C} 11:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I was about to reinstate the removed (and sourced) sentence, when I saw that you had already done that. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was not merged. Note that Jbenjos already removed the merge tag with this edit. --BDD (talk) 23:25, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

---

User:Yserbius has proposed the merger of LOLCODE and various other esoteric programmic language articles to Esoteric programming language.

Oppose this merger and all related merger proposals. These programming languages are already mentioned in esoteric programming language, with a short example of each one. If that article is expanded to include all the details in this and other language articles then it will be too long. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:24, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The issue is that there is little notability in LOLCODE or in any of the other languages proposed. Most of these seem to be one-off jokes, whose only references I can find to them are the creators page and massive lists of all programming languages ever. Is there any discussion of LOLCODE as an example of an esoteric language in a major publication, website or broadcast? Yserbius (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:08, 27 April 2012 (UTC).

If you don't think the sources on this page (or any other article) establish notability then you should take the article to AfD. There was an AfD discussion on this article in 2009, with a solid consensus to keep, but consensus may of course change over time. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose this merger as well. The article has 20 references. I also agree with the points made by Gandalf61, so I will not repeat them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tkenna (talk • contribs) 01:05, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. If this language is notable in itself, there is no reason it cannot have its own article, and merging everything into esoteric programming language will then just serve to make that article unwieldy and unreadable. If this language is not sufficiently notable, then please propose it for deletion instead of merge. 132.229.236.30 (talk) 11:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. For all the above reasons. The detail afforded by its own page is necessary to answer the obvious questions raised by its existence at all. I found this page to be highly informative. nemo (talk) 12:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. For all the above reasons. Lots of sources and informations are present in the current version. Koko90 (talk) 15:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. LOLCODE is one of the most notable esoteric languages out there, there are Emacs, Nano and Vi modes, it's in the list for syntax highlighting modes on Pastebin, it has it's own IRC channel (Two actually), and websites have actually been written in it. It's a notable language and, thus deserves it's own article. 96.51.223.95 (talk) 05:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

lolcode syntax highlighting lost

Since the switch from Geshi to Pygments for syntax highlighting (phab:T85794), support for 'lolcode' was unfortunately dropped, as can be seen with the plain text formatting on this page, and probably a few others like Esoteric programming language. If you want specialised 'lolcode' syntax highlight support again, it will need to be added to Pygments. Alternatively, if there is another language which has similar syntax, we can add that as a fallback. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 18:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

This article is mixing LOLCODE and LOLCODE|Objective LOLCODE]. For instance, there is no error handling (AWSUM THX/O NOES) in LOLCODE, only in Objective. 68.134.210.119 (talk) 19:49, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not examples

Whole article is about examples Blackdiamand (talk) 21:45, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Arnold C link is no longer valid

In section 3, the mentioned ArnoldC language links to a page that does not (or no longer) mentions ArnoldC. --Ai.unit (talk) 10:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done TJRC (talk) 23:41, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

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