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Japanese/Introduction

Japanese is spoken by 130 million people. This makes it the ninth most spoken language by native speakers. Linguists debate over the classification of the Japanese language, and one general theory asserts that Japanese is an isolated language and thus a language family of its own, known as Japonic languages. Another major theory includes Japanese as part of a hypothetical Altaic language family which spans most of Central Asia and would also include Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Korean languages. Neither of these theories has yet been generally accepted.

Japan is the only country where Japanese is the sole official language (though the island of Angaur has Japanese as one of three official languages). There are, however, numerous speakers in other countries. These are largely due to emigration, most notably to the United States of America (California and Hawaii, in particular), Brazil and the Philippines. Furthermore, when Japan occupied and colonized much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, the locals were educated in the Japanese language. Many elderly locals in Korea, Taiwan, and parts of China still speak Japanese.

Japan has steadily developed for many centuries and, unlike many other cultures, has not been seriously affected by any major invasions until recent times. A substantial part of the vocabulary, though, has been borrowed over the years from Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, German, French, and most recently English.

Grammar
While Japanese grammar is very regular, it is markedly different from English. Japanese has been deemed a subject–object–verb (SOV) and topic-prominent language, whereas English is a subject–verb–object (SVO) and subject-prominent language.

To illustrate, the English sentence “Cats eat mice” contains a subject (cats), a verb (eat), and an object (mice), in an SVO order, where the “-s” is a plural marker, and “mouse” → “mice” is a plural marker by ablaut, but only the word order indicates which is the subject and the object—i.e. which is dining and which is the meal.

The topic-prominence is not obvious in this example; “cat” is the subject (the agent) in English, but it is the topic (what the sentence is about) in Japanese. In the above example, “は” is the topic, and “を” is the comment.

The verb “kū” means “eat” in the sense of one animal consuming another. To speak about a person eating, it would make more sense to use the word “taberu” which means “eat,” as in to consume a meal.

Japanese does not have articles (the words, “a” or “an”, or “the”), nor is it mandatory to indicate number (singular versus plural). In the sentence above, “” could mean either “cat” or “cats.” The “mouse/mice” ablaut does not occur in Japanese, which is an agglutinative language (inflecting by appending) and highly regular. In Japanese, the plural is formed by adding the ending “-tachi,” or “-ra.” Thus, the word, “cats” would be “nekotachi,” and is always plural, but the word “neko” can be either singular or plural. “Nekora,” however, would sound rather strange, as “-ra” and “-tachi” are not necessarily interchangeable. For the beginner, therefore, it is best not to worry about learning plural endings.

For the English speaking student of Japanese grammar, the greatest hurdles to cross are probably the thought process of the Japanese sentence and learning the seemingly endless variety of endings available for modifying verbs and the order in which they can be strung together.

The grammatical paradigm of SVO or SOV is completely irrelevant in the study of Japanese and other languages outside the Indo-European family of languages. In truth, it is not only unimportant, it is untrue, and will cause the student of the language to fail in acquiring fluency, because it is an artificial imposition of an Indo-European construct on a non-Indo-European language. Japanese, like Tagalog and many other languages, uses affixes to explicitly demonstrate grammatical relationships instead of using syntax. In Japanese, word order will not change the meaning of the sentence. However, it will change the emotional character. An SVO word order is not incorrect in Japanese, and native speakers use it frequently, as a matter of fact to heighten the emotional charge. Thus, “あれは何だ” is a simple question: “What is that?” But “何だあれは” should receive an exclamation point at the end because the word order indicates that the speaker is clearly upset or at least annoyed by whatever “that” is.

Japanese sentences thus are not SOV. They are TV: T stands for topic and V for verb. Verbs are really the secret to success in acquiring fluency in Japanese. Thus, greatest attention should be given to learning the verb forms.

There are two tenses of time: past and present. The present tense is used to describe future events. All past tense verbs have the ending “-た” (“-ta”) or “-だ” (“-da.”) The present tense always ends in the vowel “-u” in the positive and “-nai” in the negative. There is only one exception: the word, “だ” (“da”), which is the present tense of “be” (“am,” “are,” “is.”) As in probably all languages, this verb is highly irregular in Japanese and its usage must simply be memorized. For the English speaker the two time tenses should be quite easy to remember because in English the past tense is usually indicated by a final “-t” or “-d,” and the present tense of the basic positive present tense verb “do” ends in the “u” sound. The “-nai” ending sounds similar to “nay” in English. In conversational Japanese, a complete sentence will end in a present tense or past tense verb. As indicated earlier, there are many other possible endings, but they are not used in the final position to complete a sentence, nor are they used at the end of the active verb.

Beyond the verb, there are words that indicate the function of words and phrases as they relate to the verb. The most important of these are “は” (“wa”), “が” (“ga”), “に” (“ni”), “の” (“no”), “を” (“o”), and “で” (“de.”) “は” marks what is being discussed. “が” follows the word that is the agent of the verb. This means who is doing something is the active tense, and who is receiving the action of a passive verb. In both cases, they mark “the who.” “に” indicates the direction toward and is usually translated as “in,” “to,” “at.” “の” indicates possession or source and usually is translated as “-’s” or “of.” “を” is only appropriate with active transitive verbs because it marks the direct object. Finally, “で” at the end of a place word indicates where a verb happened. It is usually translated “at,” “on,” or “in.” Added to the end of word that represents an object, it marks the instrument of the verb, what was used to perform the verb. It is translated, “with.”

The example "、 、."

translates to "Speaking of cats, Pitchan came home and ate the dog’s food in the kitchen." (The “て” verb ending indicates incompletion.)

Thus, every word or phrase in a Japanese sentence takes an ending that explicitly denotes the function of that word or phrase and how it relates to the verb.

Levels of politeness
Japanese culture and society is based on a hierarchy of higher status (目上 meue) and lower status (目下 meshita). As such, there are three varying levels of politeness. Because Japanese is primarily a "vertical" society, all relationships contain an element of relative station. For example, a student is a lower station than a teacher, and therefore a student would use polite language when speaking to a teacher, but the teacher would use plain language when speaking to a student. A salesperson talking to a customer would place himself/herself far below the customer, and would therefore use honorific language, whereas the customer would use either plain or polite language.

Honorific language is not a separate category from plain and polite language, but a separate concept that uses different rules. When using honorific language, a Japanese speaker modifies nouns, verbs, and adjectives to either lower himself/herself and their associates, or exalt someone else and that individual's associates. Whereas the use of plain or polite language is determined by the relative station of the person to whom you are speaking, the use of honorific language is determined by the relative station of the person about whom you are speaking. Exalted language is applied when you are speaking about someone who is due respect, such as a professor, an executive, a political official, or a customer. Exalted language is only applied to other people, never to oneself. Humble language, however, is only applied to oneself and people associated with oneself. It would be inappropriate, for example, to use humble language to describe a beggar, even though they would be extremely low on the social ladder.

The Japanese writing system
Japanese is written mostly using three writing scripts, kanji, hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chinese characters that were first introduced to Japan in the 4th century. Unlike Chinese, Japanese is a highly inflected language with words changing their ending depending on case, number, etc. For this reason, the hiragana and katakana syllabaries were created. The hiragana serve largely to show the inflection of words, as conjunctions and such. The katakana are mainly used for loan-words from other languages.

Kanji
The Japanese writing system is derived from the Chinese ideographic character set (Japanese: 漢字 kanji, Mandarin: 汉字 hanzi). They are usually very similar to Traditional Chinese characters. Though kanji are Chinese in origin their use is dictated by Japanese grammar. Each character may be read in different ways depending on the context it is in.

The number of existing Chinese characters has been variously estimated at between 40,000 and 80,000; however, only a small subset is commonly used in modern Japanese. An educated Japanese person will generally be able to read between 2,000 and 4,000 characters. In order to be literate in the Japanese language, the student should strive to master at least the 2,136 general-use characters (常用漢字 – jōyō kanji) established by the Ministry of Education.

Hiragana and katakana
The syllabaries, known as kana, were developed around 900 AD by simplifying kanji to form the hiragana (ひらがな, or 平仮名) and the more angular katakana (カタカナ, or 片仮名). Hiragana can be recognized by the characteristic curved shapes, while katakana are identifiable by their sharp edges and straight lines. The creation of one of the scripts has been attributed to Kūkai (774-835, alias Kōbō Daishi) the famous monk who introduced Shingon Buddhism to Japan.

Hiragana and katakana are almost completely phonetic—much more so than the English alphabet. Each set, however, is referred to as a syllabary rather than an alphabet because each character represents an entire syllable with only a single consonant (which is a more recent addition) (see ../Pronunciation/ for more). The syllabary charts in Japanese are referred to as the gojūon, meaning "fifty sounds" because they are written in a five by ten chart. However, there are a few gaps in the table where certain sounds have fallen out of use. Modern Japanese can be written using 46 kana.

In practical use, hiragana is used to write, for example, inflectional endings for adjectives and verbs (送り仮名 okurigana), grammatical particles (助詞 joshi) and auxiliaries (助動詞 jodōshi), Japanese words that have no kanji (or not commonly known kanji), and annotations to kanji to indicate pronunciation (振り仮名 furigana). Katakana is used to write, for example, foreign words and names, onomatopoeia, emphasized words (somewhat like italicized words in English text), and technical and scientific words, such as plant, animal, and mineral names.

Contents

title: Japanese/Introduction


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CACS/Glossary/URI

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) (Internet) The URI is a phase that identifies any object on the internet by specifying the protocol, web address, file location, and name of the object. The URI may also contain data for delivery to the target server, such as a user id or query. A URL is one form of a URI. When accessing the Web, The URI is usually displayed in a special field in the toolbar of a browser. URI originally stood for a Universal Resource Identifier, and details are available from the Internet Engineering Task Force in RFC1630 at IETF Web site.

The following regex may be used to validate strings for the RFC2396 specification:

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: CACS/Glossary/URI


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Wikibooks talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 1

Origins
Initial text adapted from en:Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. --mav 23:50, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I've removed large chunks from the page. But, I think the simpler layout will benefit contributors. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 01:33, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Much clearer now. This page is beginning to feel like it should be interpreted as 'Requests for banning', analagous to 'Votes for deletion'. I'm wondering if we shouldn't perhaps adopt the more traditional format of the VfD page, where new requests are placed at the bottom with '==' headings, using the '&section=new' hack, and get processed incrementally by admins. There wouldn't need to be any voting, as it ought to be obvious from a user's contribs whether they're a vandal or not. - Aya T C 23:19, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Feel free to rewrite it, the simpler the better. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 00:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I'll leave it for now, since there are more important things to do, and no-one actually seems to use the page except you and I, especially now that we have sufficient admins in place to swiftly block vandals. - Aya T C 19:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

 * That's very concise and easily followed. :) (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 00:19, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Ass Pus attacks
There must be something more that can be done about this idiot. Is it possible to track him down? Certainly where I am living the last image he uploaded (the infamous goatse image) would be considered porn and potentially he could be charged with illegal distribution of pornography as a criminal charge. Any other ideas? Kicking him off his ISP to make life harder for him? --Rob Horning 08:56, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I've already spoken to the server administrators. The problem is with Privacy policy. If a user registers for an account, then we can't do an IP block, so he can create infinite numbers of accounts, and retain his anonymity. Perhaps if the community voted to remove this restriction? I'll check if it can be negotiated. - Aya T C 16:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Update: Under point '5' of Privacy policy, it seems this information can be released, but doesn't specify a means for doing so. I'm attempting to find out the correct process for releasing this info. - Aya T C 16:30, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Update: After having chatted to some of the devs/sysadmin types (who must really hate me by now), it seems they all come from different IP addresses with different open proxies. Point is, there's no reasonable way to block the person (or people) who are doing it completely, without compromising the ability for newbies to use the system in a valid fashion. The best we can do is get IP addresses for users vandalising via open web proxies, and block those. See also Proxy blocking. - Aya T C 19:30, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I am wondering if with the IP address we can do something like SpamCop where we will send annoying e-mails to the ISP complaining about vandalizing web pages. It seems as though that is also by itself illegal in many juristictions, perhaps even Florida (where these servers are physically located) as this is a form of assult.  Certainly if somebody put up some of the images that this vandal has been using in a supermarket, newspaper page, or other public forum they could get arrested for public lewdness.  Even with open proxies (except for awful places like Chinanet that don't care about the rest of the world...only if it affects chinese citizens will they complain) they do have tracelogs to find the dial-up phone number or DSL connection at some point in the routing.  If it is a corporate internet, the dude would be instantly fired.  It is possible to find out exactly who is doing this, if the ISPs will only cooperate.  As the server farm is in Florida, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission may also be able to help out in terms of applying legal pressure, or sending a goatse image to a senator might just do the trick (if you can explain this is the garbage kids are seeing on supposedly "kid friendly" internet pages like the Wikijunior page that was attacked in the last round).  Since we would know the time and the IP address, this information can be traced to a specific individual.  Technically the data is available, and I do think there would be people that could help out and put this idiot behind bars.  If there needs to be a law written to stop an idiot like this, I am politically active enough I might be able to get some action... particularly on how shocking images like this would be to a typical legislator.  --Rob Horning 20:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Because this guy is an attention seeking vandal, the less attention they receive the, less active they will be. We can fix the damage caused quite easily, so I wouldn't worry about them too much. But, I agree that we should also be applying pressure to track them down too, because they are a poor example for new contributors to Wikibooks. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 00:28, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

New procedure
For account-based vandalism attacks (especially ass pus), if you email the details to  then he will attempt to mass-block the IP on all Wikimedia wikis. Be sure to include:

 * The fact it originated on en.wikibooks.org
 * The username of the vandal

Aya T C 15:39, 8 August 2005 (UTC)


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Japanese/Grammar/Verbs

Japanese verbs, ( 動詞; どうし ), inflect heavily to indicate formality, tense or mood, primarily in their ending. There are two tenses, several levels of formality and three classes of verbs, depending on their inflection. The two tenses are perfective (often considered past tense) and present (or technically, non-past, as the future tense is not indicated). Out of the several levels of formality, two are the most common: plain and polite.

Japanese verbs are officially categorised into five classes, but as two of these inflect much the same and another two only contain one verb each, these are usually merged into three when Japanese is taught as a foreign language. These are the consonant stem-, vowel stem- and irregular classes.

Dictionaries use the plain present positive form (commonly known as dictionary form) as the headword for verbs.

Verbs are classed based on their conjugations. Their endings don't determine the class, but are a general indicator.

Different inflections can also have suffixes. These may also be verbs with their own conjugations. Not all suffixes can be used on all verb inflections and others may only follow the verb stem. Examples are conjunctive + いる, せる ・ させる (causative), and られる (potential).

Ignoring the formality and the negative conjugations, the following is a list of verb conjugations
 * non-past
 * past
 * causative
 * causative-passive
 * conjunctive
 * conditionals
 * passive
 * potential
 * imperative
 * volitional
 * provisional

Ichidan class
Vowel-stem verbs end on a full syllable (hence the term: vowel-stem). In a sense, the final " る " of the dictionary form is dropped and the respective endings just added on.

The Japanese term " " refers to the fact that the stem ending occupies only one row in the kana chart.

The following table shows a few forms of the verb " 食べる " ( たべる, e. to eat):

Godan class
Consonant-stem verbs end in the middle of a syllable (hence the term; consonant-verb). That syllable changes depending on the form. The plain form has an う u sound ( u , ts u , r u , k u , g u , b u , m u , s u ), the ～ます -masu form has an い i sound ( i , ch i , r i , k i , g i , b i , m i , sh i ), and the negative form has an あ a sound (w a , t a , r a , k a , g a , b a , m a , s a ). The potential form has an え e sound ( e , t e , r e , k e , g e , b e , m e , s e ) and the volitional form has an おう ō sound ( ō , t ō , r ō , k ō , g ō , b ō , m ō , s ō ), so putting these together with the sounds above shows that verb conjugations follow the vowel syllabary of the Japanese character set:　あ a, い i, う u, え e and お o.

The Japanese term "" comes from the fact that the stem's last syllable spans all five rows of the kana chart in at least one form.

The following table shows a few forms of the consonant-stem verb "話す" (はなす e. to speak).

The て-form (conjunctive) and past positive form of a consonant-stem verb change the root for euphony according to the last syllable of the root (example in parentheses):

行く (いく) (to go) has an exceptional て-form 行って (いって).

If the verb stem ends on "う" such as in the verb 買う(かう, e. to buy) then its negative stem becomes -わ as in 買わない ("to not buy"). This is because the root is treated as kawu (despite the "wu" syllable not existing in modern Japanese).

Irregular verbs
Two common verbs do not share a conjugation pattern with any other verb. They are therefore commonly classed as "irregular" verbs. Formally, they are called "変格" (へんかく) verbs, as opposed to the regular "正格" (せいかく) verbs. This construction is made to use verbs and nouns of Chinese origin, for instance, from Chinese "確認"　(què rèn, confirmation) is formed in Japanese the verb " 確認する " (かくにんする), or "約分" (yuē fēn, simplify a fraction (math.)) which derives into "約分する"　(やくぶんする). The forms are "する" (e. to do, as in the examples) and "" (e. to come). The following table shows some of their conjugation forms.

Many verbs end on "〜する" and can be grouped in three categories:
 * Verbalised nouns. These are nouns which form verbs by appending "〜する". Examples:, , ", and.
 * Verbs that cannot stand alone without the "する" suffix. Examples:, and.
 * Verbs that cannot stand alone, end on an "ん" and therefore take the voiced "ずる". Examples:, , and . These verbs are commonly inflected the same as the ichidan forms, with "ずる" being replaced by "じる" thus: , ,  and.

The only commonly-used combination with "来る" is "やってくる", meaning "to come".

Polite forms
The polite (or formal) forms are simple as all of the consonant-stem verbs sit in the い-line (行く→行き) and the inflections are the same for consonant- and vowel-stem verbs.

The following table shows the polite forms for "行く" (いく, e. to go):

The imperative (〜ませ) is not used in formal forms except for a few polite verbs (see below).

Other irregularities
A small number of verbs tend to be conjugated differently from the groups that they are normally placed in.

Polite language
The verbs below are all consonant stem verbs but conjugate differently. While the regular forms also exist, they are seldom used.

The conjunctive and past forms of the first two verbs, "くださる" and "なさる", also have the alternative forms "くだすって／くだすった" and "なすって／なすった", in addition to the normal regular conjugations "くださって／くださった" and "なさって／なさった". These alternative forms have, however, fallen into disuse. While they are often encountered when reading texts from a few decades ago, the regular conjugations are usually used today.

The first three of the above verbs are also the only ones where the imperative form "ませ" of the auxiliary verb, "ます", is used to add an extra level of politeness:

Additionally, ございます, which originally came from the now-defunct yodan (四段, e. four-row) classical Japanese verb "ござる", is also used, although in modern usage, it is always used with the ます auxiliary verb ending. There is no imperative form (i.e. you cannot use ませ like above).

得る
得る (うる/える, e. to get, or to be able to) is the only surviving nidan (二段, e. two-row) class verb in modern Japanese. It has conjugations as in the below table:

"得る" can be read both as "える" in its terminal form (at the end of the sentence, or in situations such as attaching to べき). The "うる" reading is also used in those situations and in the attributive form (e.g. when attached to nouns). It is therefore incorrect to say "えるもの" as the correct form would be "うるもの". The combination "あり得る" is normally read "ありうる" in the present forms. All other conjugations follow the table above.

Miscellaneous irregularities
The vowel stem verb "呉れる" (くれる e. ) imperative form "くれ" (rather than the expected "くれろ"). Other "くれる" verbs of other unrelated meanings conjugate to the usual "くれろ".

The consonant stem verb "ある" expresses existence, but absence is expressed with the adjective "ない". Note that many textbooks also treat "ない" as a verb. The reader may also wish to be aware that more formal "ぬ" negative form and its conjunctive form, "ず", are still used: "あらぬ"/"あらず".

Summary of verb conjugations
See the adjective inflection Wikipedia page for present negative, past and past negative forms of i and na adjectives.

title: Japanese/Grammar/Verbs


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Wikibooks:Please do not bite the newcomers

Newcomers are prospective members of the Wikibooks community and therefore a valuable resource. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience—nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than a hostile atmosphere. Newcomers, by definition, lack knowledge about the way we do things. We were all newcomers once, and most of us were enthusiastic, but lacked knowledge of how the project worked, and how to find that information. Many of us still consider ourselves newcomers after months (or years) of contributing.

Even if you never were a typical newcomer—perhaps you were just super careful to read up on everything before even making slight contributions—understand that we do encourage contributors (yes, also newcomers) to be bold and keep in mind the value of others in the community. Pride for your successful contributions to Wikibooks is hardly cause for looking down on enthusiastic newcomers.

Correcting mistakes
When newcomers make mistakes, try to correct them and politely point out some avenues for reading up on best common practices. Also consider leaving a welcome note on the newcomer's talk page to let them know that they are welcome here (there are some useful ones available on Templates/User messages).

New contributors are often hesitant to make changes, especially major ones, such as NPOVing and moving. Rather than being annoyed by their timidness, kindly encourage them to be bold in updating pages. Avoid hostile comments about the newcomer's ignorance. Be very careful with the wording of your edit summaries as these cannot be reworded later.

When you give advice to new contributors, tone the rhetoric down even a few notches from the usual mellow discourse that dominates Wikibooks. Try to make the newcomer feel genuinely welcome, not as though they must win your approval in order to be granted membership into an exclusive club.

Stepping back and mentoring
If you find these frustrating, don't correct them and just let it pass. Newcomers that stick around are usually the most diligent in hunting down all their early mistakes once they get to know the project. The best way to stop that is to drive them away before they learn.

Remember that writing a book is hard to do right. There are going to be a number of experiments that go way beyond even just learning how to edit. Newcomers need a mentor far more than a critic. If you see common mistakes being made, instead of complaining about recurring issues, consider supplementing or improving our documentation for future newcomers; help by making it more accessible and point newcomers to it.

Final thoughts
Stay on the safe side by always assuming that newcomers sincerely want to contribute positively (a fair assumption since most do). Just because they do not know much about our standard editing practices doesn't mean they aren't willing to learn. Give them a chance!


text:
Wikibooks talk:Please do not bite the newcomers

Initial text adapted from en:Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers --mav 00:19, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)~

Welcome committee
Do we have a wikibooks-specific Welcoming committee something like w:Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee set up at Wikibooks already? Is there a better place to discuss adapting the (w:Wikipedia:Standard_user_greeting) for Wikibooks? I see we already have a standardized welcome message: and. (See welcome and anon for details).

(copied from w:Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee)

For quick welcomes, you can use welcome, or your own version of that template. If you do, use, not just. Remember that doing this is less personal; it's a bit like handing someone a brochure instead of talking to them. As an alternative, you can use a cut-and-paste greeting, like this one. That way you can avoid retyping generic text, but you can easily add a sentence or two that personalize it for the specific user you're greeting.

The greetings messages should be placed on the user's talk page, not their user page, so that they will get the "You have new messages" box.

For anonymous IPs that you would like to suggest they get a user name, you can use either welcomeip (which requires your user name as a parameter) or anon.

--DavidCary 03:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

 * While this is an old messege, in the interst of future readers: No, we don't. A good number of regulars welcome newcomers, though. We have the assistance reading room and it's relatives that serve to aid newcomers as well as others with most issues. --Swift (talk) 20:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Major copyedit
I've just made a considerable edit to the contents. I think I've preserved the spirit of the guideline, but figured I'd leave a note on this here. --Swift (talk) 20:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


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Wikibooks:NPOV dispute

NPOV (Neutral Point Of View) content, is one that has been written without advocating a particular viewpoint on a subjective issue. This is especially important when dealing with controversial issues. In a neutral representation, the content is constructed in such a way none of the pertinent differing points of view are prominently presented. Wikibooks content needs to be based in facts not falsehoods, opinions or judgments.

"Neutral point of view" should not be confused with "point of view espoused by an international body such as the United Nations;" writing in NPOV style requires recognizing that even widely held or widely respected points of view are not necessarily all-encompassing.

Tagging non-NPOV content
Modules under Wikibooks:Neutral point of view(NPOV)dispute are listed in: NPOV disputes. An NPOV label indicates that the content is perceived as biased (i.e., not conforming to a neutral point of view) by one or more Wikibookians, but that consensus on the expressed views is lacking. Should consensus be reached, the content is fixed or deleted.

If you find content that you think is biased, you can add {tlnpov} to the top of the page and leave a note with your rationale on the talk page. The label is meant to indicate that a discussion is ongoing, and hence that the module contents are disputed and volatile.

Resolving NPOV disputes
Wikibooks is best served by trying to present a fair, neutral description of the facts — among which are the facts that various interpretations and points of view exist (of course, there are limits to what POVs are considered worth mentioning, which can be an area of conflict). Those criticizing content as biased, often do so on grounds that viewpoints are expressed as facts. In this case, citing sources to back these facts should solve the dispute.

There may also be a disagreement over what the facts represent. It should be noted that factual statements do not equal neutral statements. Neutrality implies presenting competing versions fairly. Personal conviction has no relevance. If a significant number of other interested parties really does disagree with us, no matter how wrong we think they are, the discussion will be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties.

Wording (including page titles), selective use of viewpoints or undue weight given to one are also versions of bias. This may be a harmless case of a book being still in progress, or limited expertise on the behalf of current contributors. Adding the missing content or making a note of it (for example in the npov template) would constitute an acceptable interim solution.

If content that you think is objective has been tagged with the template message, don't panic. Views differ, and Wikibooks caters to everyone. As long as the content complies with What is Wikibooks and can be backed by sources, there should be a way to represent it in a way that is fair to all sides. It may be tricky and compromises are probably needed, but it should be manageable. Keep in mind that no edit is irreversible. All versions are in the page history. Be civil and assume good faith.

title: Wikibooks:NPOV dispute


text:
Wikibooks talk:NPOV dispute

Initial text adapted from en:Wikipedia:NPOV dispute --mav 00:55, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

A way of dealing with NPOV disputes
If there are biased points of view, each with valid points, perhaps it would be instructive to let the reader decide by presenting all points of view and allowing the reader to evaluate the merits of each case. Absorption of multiple valid points of view can be most instructive in my understanding, if each point of view is presented with rational thought, clear reasoning, and careful evidence.

Make this page a unstable version of Neutral point of view
I have some small simplification edits to the text, if no one objects I will attempt to further determine what has been said about the subject on project see if this text diverges from what is stated on the above source of the text and move it into a unstable branch of the Neutral point of view policy (or similar action). As it is its partial duplicating the policy (even if offers a consistent and more actual approach to the issue). --Panic (talk) 05:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

title: Wikibooks talk:NPOV dispute


text:
Wikibooks:Accuracy

As an instructional resource, it is important for Wikibooks to be accurate and factual in its content.

Disputes
If a Wikibooks module links to this page, it is because someone is concerned that the module may be significantly inaccurate. You can use the following wiki-code to add such a header:

The accuracy of an module may be a cause for concern if:
 * It contains a lot of unlikely information, without providing references.
 * It contains information which is particularly difficult to verify.
 * In, for example, a long list, some errors have been found, suggesting that the list as a whole may need further checking.
 * It has been written by a user who is known to write inaccurately on the topic.

If you come across a page with an accuracy dispute, the best way to solve the problem is to peer review the content, and check whether it's inaccurate. Once you've checked, edit the page to remove the header, and put something like the following in your edit summary:

 * Verified module—removed accuracy dispute

Don't remove accuracy disputes simply because the material looks reasonable: please take the time to properly verify it. Please also add to the module any sources you used to verify the information in it.

title: Wikibooks:Accuracy


text:
Wikibooks talk:Accuracy

Initial text adapted from Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute --mav 00:58, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

title: Wikibooks talk:Accuracy


text:
Help:FAQ

This is a collection of frequently asked questions. If you can't find the answer to your question here, there are several other options.

 * If you are new to Wikibooks, you may want to read Using Wikibooks, the newcomers page for helpful information and links to get you started, or the rest of the help pages.
 * If you still can't find your answer, you can visit the reading room and ask your question there; other Wikibookians will do their best to give you an answer.
 * If you prefer more active help, you can visit the #wikibooks channel on irc.freenode.net.
 * You can also contact us some other ways as well for help.

General FAQs

 * /Overview/ - General questions about the project.
 * /Readers/ - Finding, reading and using Wikibooks material.
 * /Contributing/ - Why you might want to contribute, and how you can do it.
 * /Editing/ - The nuts and bolts of creating and editing Wikibooks pages.
 * /Administration/ - What are Administrators, what are the administration tasks.
 * /Problems/ - Questions relating to present and past difficulties and criticisms.

title: Help:FAQ


text:
Help talk:FAQ

Transclude subpages?
I think we should transclude the subpage FAQs into one massive one with appropriate subsections. Having to go to 8 different FAQs is kind of stupid and forces me to choose what "role" I'm searching for questions in, when what I really want is just an answer, regardless of what organizational section the answer falls into. Kellen T 16:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

title: Help talk:FAQ


text:
Help:FAQ/Overview

What is a wiki?
A wiki is a collaborative collection of interlinked open content web pages, all of which can be visited and edited by anyone at any time. You could even edit this page by clicking the "edit" link, the third tab at the very top of this page, or edit only a section by clicking on "[edit]" to its right. If you don't have anything to add or correct on this page and you just want to see how it works, try making some test edits in the sandbox. See wiki and the Editing FAQ for more on wikis and editing.

What is Wikibooks?
Wikibooks is a project to produce a new kind of instructional resource that is comprehensive and free. See Welcome for more information.

What are the aims of Wikibooks?
Wikibooks's goal is to create a free instructional resource—indeed, the largest instructional resource in history, both in terms of breadth and depth, to become a reliable resource. It's an ambitious goal which will probably take many years to achieve.

How did Wikibooks start?
Wikibooks was started on July 10, 2003, as a sister project to Wikipedia. It was opened in response to a request by Wikipedia user Karl Wick for a place to start building open-content textbooks. Longtime Wikipedia contributor Daniel Mayer helped Karl advocate for starting such a project, and once the project was started, he helped set it up and coined the name "Wikibooks" and registered the domain names for the project. Soon, the focus of the project was expanded to include any book resource that may be used in the classroom. This does not include encyclopedias, dictionaries or quote books, since there are specific Wikimedia projects for those (see next FAQ entry).

Who owns Wikibooks?
Wikibooks is managed by a non-profit parent organization, Wikimedia Foundation, which also manages the operation of similar projects like Wikipedia (a wiki encyclopedia), Wiktionary (a wiki dictionary), and Wikiquote (a wiki quote book), and owns all domain names and servers that the Wikimedia projects run on. Bomis, Inc, a company mostly owned by Jimbo Wales, currently provides free bandwidth and power to the servers.

The modules hosted on this site are released by their authors under the GNU Free Documentation License; this means they are open content and may be reproduced freely under the terms of the license. See Copyrights and Readers' FAQ for information on how you can use Wikibooks content.

It is important to note that the content of Wikibooks is not owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, but instead individually owned by each of the contributing authors, usually noted on the history tab on each page. A notable exception to this is that content found elsewhere may be added here that has been either given copyright clearance by the original author or is already in the public domain. In these cases, a responsible Wikibook contributor would note that in the discussion pages of the module.

Who is responsible for pages on Wikibooks?
Wikibookians. Wikibooks is a collaborative endeavor. Many people have contributed to different parts of this project, and anyone can do so, including you. All you need is to know how to edit a page, and have some knowledge you want to share.

You can learn who is responsible for the most recent versions of any given page by clicking on the "Page history" link. For example, you can look at the full history of this FAQ just by clicking here. You can also see who is most responsible for a particular Wikibook by reading that book's "authors" page (if it has one). If you spot an error in the latest revision of a module, you are highly encouraged to be bold and correct it. This practice is one of the basic review mechanisms that maintains the reliability of this instructional resource.

If you are uncertain or find the wording confusing, quote the material on the associated talk page and leave a question for the next person. This helps eliminate errors, inaccuracies or misleading wording more quickly and is highly appreciated by the community.

What software is used to run Wikibooks?

 * Wikibooks and its sister Wikimedia projects all use the MediaWiki software. See Installing MediaWiki for information on what's required to run MediaWiki.

How about the hardware?

 * See Wikimedia servers.

How do I report bugs or suggest new features?
Wikimedia Phabricator is used by MediaWiki software developers to keep track of software bugs and feature requests. For more information, see bug reports and feature requests. If you don't report bugs or feature requests, then it will probably never be fixed or implemented. You can discuss feature ideas that would benefit Wikibooks with other Wikibookians at proposals reading room.

What kind of markup language does Wikibooks use?

 * Wikibooks uses a very simple markup based on UseModWiki. For more details, see Help:Editing.

Can you tell me anything about the Wikibooks logo?
More information about the logo and versions of it are best found at Wikibooks/Logo.

How is Wikibooks backed up? Could an accident destroy everything?
Database dumps are made periodically. Anyone can store their own copies.

Is it possible to download the contents of Wikibooks?

 * Yes, the whole contents of Wikibooks can be downloaded. See Help:database download.

 * Note that downloading the database dumps is much preferred over trying to spider the entire site. Spidering the site will take you much longer, and puts a lot of load on the Wikimedia server (especially if you ignore our robots.txt and spider over billions of combinations of diffs and whatnot). Heavy spidering can lead to your spider, or your IP, being barred with prejudice from access to the site. Legitimate spiders (for instance search engine indexers) are encouraged to wait about a minute between requests, follow the robots.txt, and if possible only work during less loaded hours (2:00-14:00 UTC is the lighter half of the day).

Can I get wiki books on paper?
You are welcome to print out your own copy. See Using Wikibooks/The Wikibooks Reader/Printing A Wikibook for tips.

How can I contact the project by email?
Given the massively collaborative nature of the project, there's no official email address. If you're looking for a project leader, it would be best to get in contact with Jimbo Wales ([mailto:jwales@bomis.com jwales at bomis.com]). Otherwise, see the next question. Note that if you want a faster response and from active participants in the project, you might want to send the e-mail to the mailing list. You can also send an e-mail directly to some active administrators through the web-based e-mail form. Administrators are usually quite active and can be considered some of the project leaders.

Where can I talk about Wikibooks with others?
There are some mailing lists, and also the Meta-Wiki. If you want to communicate with a specific user, leave a message on their talk page; you can find a list of personal pages (and link to your own) at the Wikibookians list (this list is by no means complete). Many Wikibookians have also registered their email addresses, which you can use by clicking the "Email this user" link from the personal pages. Finally, if you're looking to talk about a specific module or page, the best place to put your comments is on that page's Talk page. Use the discuss this page link in any module to get to the talk page. Every page has a talk page, even this one, so there is always a way to discuss the content with others. See also: Contact us.

How should I link to Wikibooks?
We don't require you to do so in any particular way. Please use your own best judgment.

Should I create an account? Can't I just edit anonymously?
Users with account names enjoy several benefits, among them is the positive reputation that goes with quality work. Editors with an established history are respected, especially with regard to neutralising module disputes. This is not to say there is a hierarchy per se—though there are editors with administrative abilities (see Administrators), these are approved by the community, and the goal of most Wikibookians is to maintain that democracy, albeit with a little anarchy, remains the supreme power on Wikibooks. Also, Wikibookians with usernames are in a sense more anonymous than contributors that are not logged in: while everyone can see the IP address of a user who did not log in when they edited, only server administrators can find the IP of a logged-in user. So if you're concerned about privacy and anonymity, you may prefer to create a username for yourself in order to hide your IP. See also How to log in.

Are there any legal implications in allowing anyone to edit? Is it safe?
In practice, illegal material gets removed from active wikis quite quickly. See this discussion on Ward's Wiki for more thoughts.

I have a problem not on this list, where do I go?

 * If you cannot find answers to your specific technical problems in this FAQ, try asking in the technical reading room.

ja:ヘルプ:概要FAQ

title: Help:FAQ/Overview


text:
Help talk:FAQ/Overview

Initial text adapted from w:en:Wikipedia:Overview FAQ --mav 01:31, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Problematic edition by anonymous user
Hey people, please take a look at the new question added by IP 63.229.84.90; I think this question should be placed on talk page, because it's a (weird) comment about our goals here, not a FAQ. Marcelo Reis 17:05, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Here it is: 193.63.168.208 14:12, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why should I expect Wikibooks to succeed?

 * If a text book is by popular definition a book you only read because it is required, why should Wikibooks garner sufficient reader/editor interest to succeed? People want to know how to size the pipes in their sprinkler system, not learn about fluid mechanics or hydraulics engineering.  They want to figure how much they have to save to retire at age 50, not learn about mathematics.  But Wikibooks needs reader-editors to succeed.  So why should I expect it to succeed?

text from GNU sites ie Wikipedia
I've been searching around to no avail, so I'll just breakdown and throw this out there. Whats the policy on importing work from Wikipedia into Wikibooks? Are there any special steps that need to be considered? RichMac 03:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

title: Help talk:FAQ/Overview


text:
Help:FAQ/Readers

How do I search Wikibooks?
Use Special:Search or use the search box in the sidebar. See Help:Navigating for more.

You can also use Google to search Wikibooks by following this link. Google's index will, however, not be up to date.

Where can I request new entries?
After you've exhausted searching for the content, you may ask for more help in locating it in the assistance reading room, or add an entry to Requested books.

What license does Wikibooks use for contents?
The text of each page is covered by at least the GNU Free Documentation License. Some contents (notably images and other media files) may use compatible licenses for which you will need to check the terms. These may be public domain, use a copyleft license like Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike, or are used under fair use terms.

See Copyrights and Media for more.

How do I cite a Wikibooks module?
Cite it as you would any other web page in accordance with the normal citation practice of the publication you are submitting the paper to follows. Because Wikibooks modules are constantly edited, you should include the URL for the specific version of the module you accessed. You can determine this URL by clicking the "Page history" link and clicking on the date of the version you want (likely the one at the top). The URL of the resulting page is a permanent link back to that version no matter what changes are made afterwards. Citing the individual authors is not necessary.

How do I print a wikibook?
Newer browsers will be able to access the "print stylesheet" which removes the Wikibooks interface and some colors. Try a print preview (if your browser has this function) to see how it will print.

Alternatively, you can click the "printable version" link in the toolbox at the bottom of the menu on your left.

Some books provide special print versions.

Can I mirror Wikibooks on my website?
You can use, copy, redistribute, modify or mirror as much as you wish, as long as you follow the provisions of the GNU Free Documentation License and the licenses of any images or media you use.

See Copyrights, and Media.

Can I get Wikibooks on CD, or download it for offline use?
There are no CDs currently available. You can however download the database. Some books, furthermore, have print versions.

Am I required to use the GFDL for my site if I quote Wikibooks?
Citing Wikibooks is sufficient if you're quoting small bits (under the fair use doctrine). If you wish to quote substantial portions of it, you may wish to consult with a lawyer as it may constitute a derivative work. You are welcome to drop by the Reading room to seek the opinion of Wikibookians. We're usually a good bunch and try not to bite. :-D

How do you know if information is correct?
As anyone can edit any module, it is of course possible for biased, out-of-date or incorrect information to be posted. However, because there are so many other people reading the modules and monitoring contributions using the Recent Changes page, incorrect information is usually put right quickly. Thus, the overall accuracy of this instructional resource is improving all the time as it attracts more and more contributors. You are encouraged to help by correcting modules and passing on your own knowledge.

Is there any peer-review process to validate included information?
In general, Wikibooks depends on contributors like you to fix any incorrect information, though Wikibooks does have a system to review page revisions. Content should generally be easy to verify by checking other sources or through being able to reproduce similar results yourself.

ja:ヘルプ:読者FAQ

title: Help:FAQ/Readers


text:
Help talk:FAQ/Readers

Initial text adapted from w:Wikipedia:Readers' FAQ --mav 01:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Download articles
The question Can I get Wikibooks on CD, or download it for offline use? really needs a better answer. I can think of several textbooks that I have spent well over a hundred hours reading. That is an insane amount of time to spend online for something that is probabably about 100 KB in length (a sub minute download time). Downloading the entire database and setting up a mysql database, a http server, php ... is a huge overkill for one book. I should be able to choose a book, download a zip or pdf of the html and then browse at my leisure later. Many people who use these books will want to not pay per minute connection fees or will want to use it on their laptop away from a network connection. I personally consider wikibooks useless from a reader's point of view until there is someway to download One text book and read it later offline. Ditto for being able to print one text book. --Anon

 * That requires software that has not been coded yet. But all that is planned. It will be some time before we have our first nearly complete book anyway so this isn't a pressing issue right now. --mav 08:48, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Has this question been re-examined yet? There are now several books that are more or less complete, and at the very least, those should be packaged up and be made available for download in a nice pdf (or whatever, ps if it floats one's boat). This could be done manually, but I don't see why there couldn't be a simple script to convert the wiki markup into LaTeX (add in all the nicities like a chapter index and such automatically), then use that to generate both a PDF and HTML document. Zip those up, upload them to the site, and there you go. Run that once a day or so, and things should be up to date as well. --Kish 08:10, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Two years after the beginning of this discussion, there seems to be still no way to get a PDF/LaTex/whatever file containing a wikibook. Is it still planned or should we forget about that and remain with reduced usability for these books? -- 20 Jul 2005

 * Until one can download a book this site is really pretty useless as a "book site" compared to old-fashioned sites. Other book-like documents, even when split up in multiple pages, can usually be downloaded somehow - e.g. with wget of a directory and its subdirectores.  Text here can be read on-line, but not conveniently as books which is what the site claims to provide.  For authors to "prepare a print version" or whatever isn't very good either since that will presumably become outdated.  Asking people do download the whole site doesn' scale well either, even if you get it to work without needing to run SQL and whatnot.  My guess is that however much work it is, you need to reorganize so each book resides in its own directory.  That way wiki pages get auto-sorted into their correct book. 129.240.186.42 13:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Related to the above discussion, the answer to How do I print a wikibook? is not really very helpful for printing a whole book. Nearly every book is broken up into separate URLs, which means printing each URL separately. Obviously this isn't the end of the world, but it's not exactly user-friendly either. - Qaphsiel 19:58, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Possible replacement
I have to say, as a long time "linux" user, I am truly horrified by that section on downloading a wikibook. First off, it seems like fully half of it is involved in setting up a directory in the root directory (bad bad bad bad!) and then in undoing it rather then simply create the directory in one's home directory in the first place and never have to worry about permissions and ownership thereafter; then it goes on to suggest that you should manually download each and every HTML page (badly!) and then cluelessly explains about a quoting error (which must then immediately be rectified). This last line just makes me want to wail in agony and tear out my eyes: "You can place a new item on yor dektop for your wikibook. To do this you hit the right mouse key on a free space of your desktop frame. Choose New, File and Link to (URL). As the URL adress just put in /wiki/nameofthebook."

Here's a replacement, dependent on having wget installed. cd ; mkdir wikibooks/ ; mkdir wikibooks/NAME_OF_WIKIBOOK/ && cd wikibooks/NAME_OF_WIKIBOOK/ && mkdir en.wikibooks.org && touch en.wikibooks.org/robots.txt && wget -kp --recursive --html-extension -l 2 --no-clobber -np -- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/NAME_OF_WIKIBOOK && cp -r en.wikibooks.org/wiki/NAME_OF_WIKIBOOK/* en.wikibooks.org/ && rm -rf en.wikibooks.org/wiki

One could script this as well. The body of the script would be: cd ; mkdir wikibooks/ ; mkdir wikibooks/$1/ ; cd wikibooks/$1/ && mkdir en.wikibooks.org && touch en.wikibooks.org/robots.txt && wget -kp --recursive --html-extension -l 2 --no-clobber -np -- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/$1 && cp -r en.wikibooks.org/wiki/$1/* en.wikibooks.org/ && rm -rf en.wikibooks.org/wiki and then a chmod +x script-name.sh ; sh script-name.sh NAME_OF_WIKIBOOK

(This is a bit baroque, so I'll explain; the mkdir and touch are necessary so that the robots.txt file will exist before wget begins its download with the --no-clobber option forcing it to accept our fake blank robots.txt and ignore the real one on wikibooks which would tell wget to not do any recursive downloads. Of course, that's exactly what we want to do. The wget invocation does a two-level recursive download which appends .html to all HTML files and downloads all prerequisites for viewing a file while rewriting all URL links to point to the local copy if possible. However, a two-level recursive download has the major defect that many many files under the en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ will be downloaded but not needed! However, if you change "-l 2" to the much faster and fewer downloads of "-l 1", then any subdirectories would fail to be downloaded. For example, in the Haskell book, -l 1 would not download Haskell/Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 Hours.)

Obviously, some testing would be good. This leaves a mess in the en.wikibook.org subdirectory and so far I've only tested it on Bash and my system. --maru (talk) contribs 03:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Related to How to Print a WikiBook
It would be really nice if someone made a script such that a reader can select a book to be printed by one of the ondemand printers, such as Lulu.

Please help me to translate this sentence
I have been translating this page to Turkish. But I couldn't figure out this sentence:

Cite it as you would any other web page in accordance with the normal citation practice the publication you are submitting the paper to follows.

Could anyone say what this sentence say? 78.164.208.224 (talk) 22:14, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

title: Help talk:FAQ/Readers


text:
Talk:Polish

Untitled
Should we split this into several pages? -- Emperorbma
 * I think so. Please go ahead. Kpjas

When I red this I wonder how I was capable to learn this language :) I think that it would be nice to write something about double negation in polish. Dryobates.
 * i'm not sure that i wouldn't say that i don't disagree with you. ;) Boud 12:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I started a new link: Polish Idioms and Expressions. But I need someone else to write in it! Please, be a Polish person =) or someone who speaks Polish REALLY fluently :-) Dziewcyna Gwiazda

I'm from Poland and I can help you. Just say, what do you want?

Hi Dziewcyna Gwiazda, some of my friends on pl.wikipedia and other online forums might well enjoy making a list of boud-ish idioms and expressions in Polish ;), before they get lost because i forget my old errors... But that would be too cult-ish. Boud 13:49, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is an idiomatic expression in Polish which literally translates into English as: "He is from Pipiduvec." Pipiduvec (sp.?) is a mythical town where only "stupid people" live, so the expression means, "He is stupid," or "he is an idiot." Do you know this expression?

 * As far as I know (I'm native speaker but not a linguist), it's not exactly like that. "pipidówa" (pipi-doova) is a term for a small, primitive village. You could say "damn, what a pipidówa, they don't even have a shop here". --Derbeth talk 18:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Naming convention change
Would anyone have something agains changing naming convention from archaic colon style to new slash style (Polish:Introductions would become Polish/Introductions)? This change would provide readers with backlinks to the table of contents on top of every chapter.

This change can be done by a bot, with no need to edit anything manually. I just need consensus of book contributors. --Derbeth talk 08:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Forum
If this is a book for the people who want to learn Polish, maybe it would be a good idea to create a sister-forum to this book? I mean, to create a forum where people who learn Polish could ask questions and some netives (like me) would answer them?

Too focused in grammar
Hello. I am writing the polish wikibook in portuguese language and I would just like to say to the english writers that this course is too focused in grammar. A beginners course should have a more vocabulary then grammar. Take a look at the German wikibook for some inspiration. thanks --201.81.159.119 (talk) 01:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

More pharses and useful words! (nie lubię angielskiego ;p)

Licence vs. License
SHB2000, you have reverted my typo fix: Polish. I didn't know that "Licence" is correct in British English. Thanks! But also GNU Free Documentation License is the official name of the license. Probably, this particular case is not w:WP:ENGVAR. -- Alexey Vazhnov (discuss • contribs) 09:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * my bad. Usually, though, license in British English is a verb while licence is a noun (but as a speaker of Australian English, I just use license regardless), but I didn't realise it was a part of a proper name. I'll self-revert my edit. --SHB2000 (discuss • contribs) 09:46, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Polish


text:
CACS/Glossary/ISOC

Internet Society (ISOC) (Organization) The ISOC (pronounced eye-sok) is a cooperative of commercial, professional and governmental organizations that promotes internet technologies. It was founded in 1991 as a corporate umbrella for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other ad-hoc activities ISOC now sponsors an annual conference and other events. It is headquartered in Virginia and Geneva, and its web address is www.isoc.org.

title: CACS/Glossary/ISOC


text:
User:Guaka

For now, see w:en:User:Guaka.

title: User:Guaka


text:
Talk:Computer Programming

Babelprog
Suppose I know how to do something in one language, and I want to translate it to another language. For example, I know how to sprintf in C, and I want to do the same in Haskell. Or I know lapply in R and I want to do it in Visual Basic. Is there any babelfish-like tool that could be used to help me? Albmont 14:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

There exists a few specific translation tools:

 * "f2c" (f2c), which translates from Fortran77 to the C programming language.
 * there are several Pascal to C/C++ translaters.
 * http://jython.org/ lets you write code in Python and run it on a Java virtual machine.

Please add to this list. While translating from one programming language to another is much easier than natural-language translation, I imagine that translation into a completely different language family ( "imperative" C to "functional" Haskell) is much more difficult than the above same-family imperative-to-imperative translations.

Is there a better place for this list of translation tools somewhere in this book on programming? --DavidCary 20:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I have just found an interesting resource: http://merd.sourceforge.net/pixel/language-study/syntax-across-languages/Mthmt.html. I guess there's no restriction to copy and paste it to Wikibooks (or wikipedia). Albmont (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Tables
I have found 2 tables that are almost identical, the task of maintaining the information on both is very hard, they should be merged (as one has 2 more rows) and a template should be elaborated so it will be easier to extend and update. I will get to it as time allows but if someone could take a shot at it, please do... txs. Computer programming/Language concepts --Panic 17:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Yeah, splitting the tables was my fault. I wanted to avoid the kind of sprawl that made this book feel really mediocre and unhelpful.  This was probably not the best way to go about it, but to get an idea, compare this hyper-sprawl version with its leaner and meaner counterpart.  Still not quite lean and mean enough.  I think that if we want to make this book halfway decent, we might need some radical surgery.  The book isn't any good if it's just everybody trying to squeeze in their favourite thing (i'm probably guilty of that too).  We need to cut and steer.  For example, could you live with the tables just being a subpage and not on the front page?  Or how about a show/hide link?  -- Kowey 05:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I started updating the Table with some pages and noticed that the template didn't have the Perl section in so I updated it. One problem however is the Visual Basic .NET stuff. Doesn't seem to want to link to the pages no matter what I enter. The heading works fine just not the individual pages. Anyone got any ideas?? Oop's never mind the last I was brain dead for a second NET is not Net...John

it is useful to have a strong programming culture
In the present text, there is this awkward, although very understandable phrase "...but it is useful to have a strong programming culture." I would assume this means  cultural , as in having a strong background of knowledge and or experience in programming, perhaps including pseudo-code, logic, etc... From Wikipedia entry culture: ...anthropologists commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity and activities to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. Unfortunately as used as a noun here- it sounds analogous to "culture" as in a "bacterial culture." he-heh! And it may be a teleogy- what is a "programming culture" other than a culture/climate that consists of programmers programming? I am afraid to replace the word as it might have common usage in the programming community that I am unaware of.??? There are surely better ways to phrase the usefulness of learning more than one computer language. Cuvtixo (talk) 16:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

 * Probably background ?!? it seems at least on that phrase to make better sense (as I didn't search the context where it is being used), go ahead and change it... --Panic (talk) 16:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Development platforms
This article seems to be specificall about programming on the personal computer. Although there are some suggestions about including how to program FOR another device (cell phone, mainframe, etc) ON a personal computer, this is significantly different from programming directly from a terminal on a VAX or mainframe, for example. I think there should be some specific information about what a development environment on a PC (IDE) is, what target platforms one can program for. I can't imagine that there isn't some public domain printed material that has a more inclusive overview of all electronic computer programming and what programming languages are.

Some mention of scientific calculators, for example, and programming in languages like FORTH and assembler for Boot ROMs would be a lot more informative Cuvtixo (talk) 22:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

book name
I see that recently this book was renamed from "Computer programming" ("sentence casing like Wikipedia does") to "Computer Programming" ("title casing like books often do").

Currently the Manual of Style proposed guideline and the Local manuals of style essay both specifically mention both of these styles as perfectly acceptable for a WikiBook.

Is there a reason to prefer one over the other for this specific book? (Reasons to prefer one over the other, in general, should be discussed in the talk pages of the above guidelines).

If ever change the name of this book again, what name would you prefer? Perhaps a more specific name, such as "Comparing Computer Programming Languages"? --DavidCary (talk) 08:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

 * I have been using (the casing) "Computer programming" for categories and "Computer Programming" for WIkibooks as to avoid commissions in general categories and book categories, that is "Computer Programming" as a Wikibook can have it's own category and coexist with "Computer programming" as a general category were various Wikibooks belong (in realty we are using "Programming"), hope that this helps and can be used to come up with a more consistent manual of style... --Panic (talk) 19:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

merge
I suggest merging the near-stub book The Complete Programming FAQ into a section of Computer Programming. Both seem to have the same scope -- a general overview of all programming languages, but not an in-depth tutorial on how to learn any one of them. --DavidCary (talk) 14:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

 * It seems logical, the The Complete Programming FAQ has no real structure and no defined scope...
 * One thing that the outcome of the VfD indicated is that people have been moving/deleting content out of this book in place of trascluding or reusing it. It seems without giving any attribution to the source book. If I had the time I would also examine all programming books and rebuild this book with the generalist/conceptual information...   --Panic (talk) 18:37, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Programming skills
I am an old programmar. I am not sure how to go about it, but programming is mostly language independent. I learned machine code first. Then assembly. Coded more in assembly then high level languages. I can say however that I havn't coded in a high level language in which I havn't written a compiler.

The two most basic constructs can be explained and shown in many languages.

The simplest is a list of instructions. A linear construct. Steps executed in sequence.

Step 1, Do a. Step 2, Do b. Step 3, Do c.

A loop is a circular construct directing that something is to be repeated.

Step 1, Do a Step 2, Do b Step 3, Do c Step 4, Go back to Step 1

Conditional constructs. Conditional loops. Exceptions. Interupts. Modules and linkers. Etc.

I have written metacompilers. One used to write a COBOL compiler. A metacompiler grammar rule. Illustrates some constructs.

expr = term $(('+':ADD|'-':SUB) term!2);

The above metacompiler rule generates an expr function that returns success or failure. It Illustrates the two basic constructs above. The first instruction is to call the term function that returns a boolean value (success or failure). If successful the remaining is a loop. This example is far more advanced than the two basics above. Thing is that a declarative language may be seen as or in terms of general concepts. We have linear, circular, conditional, and subroutines in the one line rule above.

The basic programming concepts are in all general purpose programming languages. Maybe because when I started programming, assembly was common. I learned machine code for many computers. LGP-30 machine code, IBM 1400 autocoder assembly, Honeywell H-200 Easycoder. As well as the H-1200, H-3200 and Honeywell 800 and 8200. DEC-10 macro 10, PDP-11 and most all micro processors.

My point is that if you can really program you can do it in any programming language.

Steamerandy (discuss • contribs) 08:38, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Should not Visual C be included
One of the difficulties for beginners in C is the abstract nature of the language. To design a simple Window in C or C plus plus is not out of the reach of anyone but wouldn't it be easier to just direct everyone to Visual C. That way the familiarity of Microsoft's Windows environment is visible straight away.

Visual C does have some deprecation so that you have to be aware of which version you are using but that is not a real issue. Even something as simple as calling the Paintbrush function to provide the basic colour palette you seen in photo and image editors would be more useful for beginners than explaining that the same thing can be accomplished in C with library calls.

If no one minds I'll add Visual C since you can also download a free version for educational use.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 01:38, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ [//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Computer_Programming&type=revision&diff=3119867&oldid=3119778 Voilà]. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 06:49, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Computer Programming


text:
Talk:C Programming

 * /Q&A Archive/
 * /Q&A Archive/

About

 * Started: 11 August 2003
 * Size: 60,800 words (15 March 2012; determined from the printed version, so probably actually larger)
 * Headings Case: a mixture of title case and sentence case
 * Headings Case: a mixture of title case and sentence case
 * Headings Case: a mixture of title case and sentence case

Programming:C Contributor style guide and discussion
I've trimmed the outline here. Specific details such as if, for statements and so on should go under their parent article. Dysprosia 08:56, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think lots of work needs to be done in reorganizing the Beginning C section. The variables section needs to be reorganized quite a bit, and I think the compilation page should go away. Thunderbunny 22:53, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Where is the pointer and functions? I suggest we move the content in this cover to Programming:History of C. the fmt of this book is quite different from other books. --Yacht (talk)Q 02:42, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Pointers and relationship to arrays Dysprosia 03:20, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * something about macro definition and substitution? --Yacht (talk)Q 02:52, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * You can use #define for function/macro definitions, but they're rather evil. I'd use #define only for constants. Dysprosia 03:27, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * i meant do we need a separated chapter for that? --Yacht 17:01, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pages should be limited to the context of the title, for example the "Programming:C" page should be restricted to the language itself: the history of the language is appropriate, the tutorial is not. Anything that isn't universally "the C language" should be relocated to the appropriate page.

Additionally, C programs are not limited to unix environments.

--Eibwen 04:15, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi there,

Let me start by saying that from what I have seen so far, I like this book very much. So much so, that I recommended it be featured on the front page after some polishing, as an example of what a textbook should look like.

However, there is one thing that seems to be severely lacking to me. In the introduction of this book, it is written: "This book is intended to teach C programming, from beginning to advanced." This would seem to indicate to me that this is a book that teaches you how to program in C. However, from what I have seen so far, this is more like a reference manual for the C language. What's lacking is a C tutorial, something that explains concepts to me by letting me code small programs, and compile and test them. Is this intentional?

I am not a coder myself, I cannot fill in perceived gaps in this manual, I am afraid.--Branko 17:26, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Perhaps there should be seperate tutorial and reference books?

I completely agree, and would like to add that some kind of assumptions need to be made about the user's level of programming experience and then standardised throughout the book. I found it difficult to understand what I was expected to know reading this book. Though it supposedly takes you "from beginning to advanced", I found that each chapter appears completely disconnected and independant of every other chapter. While some assume you don't know things that have already been covered, others seem far advanced to any previous chapters (e.g. the libraries section, which utterly confused me after a somewhat pleasent introduction to functions in C).

 * Ok, I think this should be a high priority issue as the book in its present state is half unusable to both beginners and advanced coders. How about divide it to two parts: I Basics (intro to programming languages in general), II Advanced (C-specific topics and other advanced stuff: scopes, idioms, nothing platform-dependent though), III Appendix (C-keywords, precedence tables, ASCII charts etc.)? Epikuros 13:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps change history section a bit
I think the history section is slightly misleading, slightly innacurate and slightly inappropriate.

- The advent of the solid state era at Bell Labs is irrelevant to the software research done there. Computing (FotranAlgol etc) was developed on thermionic equipment, and the advent of C was on machines decades later. There is no direct link between the two. More important and germane would be the research done there by Shannon on encoding and information theory around 1950. C could have happened without solid satate, but not without information theory.

- The lineage from Fortran is innacurate. Algol weas created as a reaction to the multiplicity Fortran and all of the other high level languages at the time (there were many). Fortran was the most popular, but this "begat" is misleading. In the letter from the GAMM committee on the higher level lanugage, written after a tour of America in 1957: "We have endeavored from the beginning to avoid the possibility of deviations from existing earlier proposals (Rutishauser 1951, FORTRAN, partly also PACT). Guided by tbe news and reports that Bauer and Bottenbruch have brought back from America, we have decided that our hitherto existing proposals also largely agree structurally with Perlis' IT language and the Remington-Rand Math-Matic. This agreement is most striking with Math-Matic, the most recent of the listed proposals." (cited in Bemer 1969)

This passage is important not only because of its explicit distancing from Fortran as a sole solution, but also of its mention of the many other language systems - including some excellent Eurpoean ones - that existed at the time.

- it is inappropriate in that ignores the rich tradition of programming language research being done at Bell in the period - notable languages are

1955 Wolontis-Bell Interpreter

1955 L3

1958 L2

1959 Bell SAP

1959 Macro SAP

1961 Music

1962 SNOBOL

1962 SCL

1963 ALPAKA

1963 ALPAK

1963 L6

1963 ALTRAN

1964 Process III

1965 OEDIPUS

1966 EPL

1966 ALPAKB

1966 VPRPAK

1966 IBMAP

1966 BEFAP

1967 MULTILANG

1967 GRIN

1967 AMPL

1968 B-LINE

1969 FASE

1970 SWAP

1971 BELL-CODE

All of which were in their way influential on the development of C. In particular, the tradition of macro-languages and macro-extensions to languages at Bell certainly was vital to the style and design of C. (Can you imagine C without the preprocessor?)

Resources added
Added a resources link to the Pelles C page and Open Source page I created - Hope that is appropriate 82.69.58.117 06:17, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why are thereTWO tables of contents???
I don't understand. In the table of contents at the top of the page, there is a link halfway down to another table of contents with a nested subtree of data. IMO, this adds unneeded complexity. I want to flatten this out and just have one table of contents at the top, like 99% of the other texts on this site.

Any objections? If not, I will make the change next weekend. --Waxmop 15:49, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I Added the {Free,Net,Open,Darwin,DragonFly}BSD information about they have the gcc on there systems.

--Luís Vitório Cargnini 14:19 (-03:00 GMT, -03:00 UTC) March 21, 2005.

A beginner learning C
(moved to C Programming/Simple Input and Output )

merge the cover page and the table of contents?
Someone recently split apart the cover page and the table of contents ( Programming:C and ). I find it reminiscent of "splash screens". Many people recommend *not* using "splash screens".

Do those objections *not* apply to wikibooks, or should we merge the cover page and the table of contents?

 * Hi, I'm the bastard that moved everything around :-). You raise a good point though, I absolutley hate splash screens on most websites. That being said I think the rules are a little different for books. As of right now the cover does suck though. So if we do decide to keep it a nifty graphic or something would be need to be added. But if you really think the pages should be merged than I'm all for it. Just as long as the first page isn't like what it was before I made my changes. That page was disorganized, had two tables of contents, and looked more like a long essay than a well organized online book. --Astone42 13:09, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Naming policy
You might want to consider the WB:NP. You current naming convention is depreciated and has several disadvantages - like it has no navigational links. Also you worthy effort is neiter considered a book nor a section inside a book. See wikistats which implements an exstensive book and section detector.

--Krischik T 07:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Compilers
Just a logical question here--Wouldn't it be better to teach C by standardizing a single compiler across platforms? We can be more in-depth in how things work, for example, if everyone uses GCC (either by means of direct install or MinGW). Blank 14:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to quote the FAQ:

 * Many beginners fail to appreciate that C and C++ are used on a
 * number of platforms, and that what works with a particular compiler
 * is not necessarily going to work with another, even on the same
 * platform. It is important that a learner be clear about the
 * differences between programming in standard C or C++, and
 * programming using platform- and compiler-specific extensions. In
 * the long run, this approach - that of separating the idea of
 * "language" and "platform" - leads to a better understanding of both
 * the language and the platform. It is generally accepted that the
 * sooner this is appreciated by the learner, the better.
 * -- the C FAQ

Does that answer your question?

other wiki that discuss the C programming language
Is there a better place to mention other wiki that discuss the C programming language ? Is " http://wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Programming " the appropriate link to use to get those other wiki to link back to the beginning of this book ?
 * clc-wiki http://clc-wiki.net/ "computers.languages.c"
 * the original wiki http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CeeIdioms
 * Pelles C
 * Wikipedia: "C programming language"
 * Wikipedia: "C syntax"

-- DavidCary --70.189.73.224 03:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

 * the Pelles C Wiki
 * A wiki about C programming standards
 * The C Programming Tips and Tricks Wiki.

--DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 06:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

String function implementations
Does anyone have any objections to me re-writing some of the string function implementations? Frankly including meaning-less variable names, along with the ternary conditional operator, is not the way to instruct others on C programming or on how the string functions work. AmitDeshwar 08:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Program Flow/Control
Why is the Control page called "Program Flow" in the table of contents, but "Control" elsewhere? --Kpengboy 03:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Kpengboy

In addition to
Few days ago I started writing C Programming book in Estonian and i would like to link all the pages here. So could someone write "Standard language rules", so that I could verify what i have written and link it here?

It should contain at least:
 * syntax, something like:
 * C has free design
 * Code segment is ended by ";"
 * C differs capitals
 * C needs the code segment to be defined or valuated before use, and also how it differs from
 * recursion
 * linked list data structure
 * Parts of code, where to write them and short description what thy are, something like
 * comments on the written program
 * pragma/include directives
 * define directives
 * structures
 * global variables
 * prototypes
 * main function (with short overview how data is passed & how value differs from reference)
 * other functions
 * Unwritten rules (or links to them, like Element of style)

Exercises, anyone?
I think there should be some exercises at the end of each lesson - so that the reader can practice. # Brandon Johnsonn 12:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this strongly; the current format of dumping 100 exercises at the end of the first several sections is both overwhelming and, without solutions, of limited use to the student. Inclusion of a few appropriate exercises, well explained with solutions, at the end of each lesson would significantly increase the utility of this book. Meatnordrink (discuss • contribs) 18:23, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Topics
It seems to me that the topics in this ebook are drifting around. Is this book going to teach C programming language or the standard C library? In my experience of teaching C it is best to start as simple as possible and cover the language and include only the bare minimum library calls, like printf, scanf, getc, etc.

I would suggest to start very slow with a general introduction then follow though with more specific topics such as types and variables, operators and expressions, flow control, functions, pointers and arrays, structures, and IO. There is defiantly a need for a book on the standard library, more advanced topics such as macros, error handling, and whatnot, but not in an introductory text.

Remember that people will be reading this book because they don't know C and most likely very little about programming. Jumping into advanced topics like error handling before you even cover what a variable will not get the response you are after.

I have had the most success when topics are covered in this order: introduction, types and variables, operators and expressions, flow control, functions, pointers and arrays, structures, and IO. Topics should be brief and general without getting to deep to avoid overloading the student. All other material should be moved to a new text or placed in an intermediate or advanced section of the book.

What does everyone else think? I can see that this book has been pretty slow so if I don't get any responses within a few days I will restructure the beginning C section and start hacking away... I would rather have some community involvement with this rather then just a me thing. --Karl McClendon 02:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree and would like to help if you are still on it -- Nefthy 11:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Use of the "source lang" tag
I've seen the use of the

when copied from the on-line or print version, pastes OK into a text editor.

However, if you copy-paste from the PDF file, you get:

How can this be fixed?

--Rickjpelleg (talk) 19:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

another freely available C programming book
"The C Book, second edition by Mike Banahan, Declan Brady and Mark Doran, originally published by Addison Wesley in 1991. This version is made freely available." http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/

Is there anything we need to do before copying-and-pasting that entire book into this Wikibook? --DavidCary (talk) 02:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

 * I had noticed it before but thought that it was somehow problematic since it would involve checking that it was up-to-date and the license gives the impression that a 3rd party is licensing a work that it doesn't hold the rights of "this online version and derived works is copyright Mike Banahan".
 * The license text is a bit convoluted and there wouldn't be any problem if the license was granted directly by Mike Banahan, and "The online version was prepared with the assistance of some Perl scripts written by Mike Banahan..." doesn't directly imply the granting of those rights.
 * You can try to get a clearer statement from the site (it has that content up from sometime now) or from Mike Banahan, I have taken similar steps successfully before.   --Panic (talk) 03:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Yet another book on C
Ever heard of "Think Pyhton"? There's a book with the same structure called "Think C", and because it is published by Green Tea press it's under the GNU Free Document License. It would be great if we could add it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.201.1.205 (discuss • contribs)

 * That is a good idea. I couldn't locate the book on the Green Tea Press website though. Also the publisher or authors would need to grant permission for licensing under CC-BY-SA too. --dark lama  16:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

 * Link to that book is on this page. That links to this one, where you can find the download link. --Arny (discuss • contribs) 01:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Great book
Thanks very much for the clear explanation. Good clarity is rare. I've learnt a lot in a very short time!

Completed Status
In comparison to some of the other featured and "completed" books (Ada Programming, Python, Haskell, Scheme in 48 Hours), this one in particular seems to be lacking significantly. It could use a large amount of restructuring, a consistent style across the book, full coverage of topics, exercises, standardizing the experience level of the reader across the book, etc. etc. Not that it isn't a great book so far, but I think it could be much more with some more work. Thoughts on removing the completed tag and beginning a restructure? CharmlessCoin (discuss • contribs) 04:34, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

list of standard library header files

 * Which section of this book is the best for the list of standard library header files?
 * I see a list of standard library header files at C Programming/Reference Tables, C_Programming/Standard_libraries, C Programming/C Reference/List of C functions, and C Programming/C Reference.
 * If, for pedagogical reasons, a student reading through a printed copy of this book really needs that list repeated in various sections,
 * would it be OK if someone made a template for that list?
 * (Templates for text that is repeated in various parts of this book are listed at /Templates).
 * --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 06:45, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

What you need before you can program
While I think this book should emphasize writing portable C programs that can run on nearly every computer, I see that many computers apparently don't have a C compiler installed, and it is not obvious to the beginners reading this book (our target audience) which C compiler to choose and how to install it.

I think it's a little misleading that the "C Programming/Using a Compiler" page doesn't say anything about using a compiler -- apparently that is covered in "C Programming/A taste of C", "C Programming/Compiling", and later sections of the book.

Would it be more helpful to our target audience to take all the step-by-step operating-system-specific details at "C Programming/What you need before you can learn" and "C Programming/Using a Compiler" pages, and move them to a dedicated page for each operating system? Perhaps
 * "C Programming/What you need before you can program on Linux"
 * "C Programming/What you need before you can program on Mac OS X"
 * "C Programming/What you need before you can program on Windows"
 * "C Programming/What you need before you can program on BSD"

How can we make it obvious to beginners that these operating-system-specific details are completely irrelevant to (portable) C programming, and it's safe to skip over those details? Should we stick those details in an appendix, rather than near the beginning of the book? --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 16:42, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

merge
My understanding from reading "C Programming/What you need before you can learn" is that this "C Programming" book has a topic of standard C programming and a target audience of beginners who have never programmed before. As far as I can tell, Beginning C, "C Programming", and Fundamentals of C Programming have the same topic and the same target audience, and so should be merged into one book, in accordance with Using Wikibooks/Contributing To An Existing Wikibook.

If they actually have a different topic or a different target audience or both, please edit the books to make that more clear. Otherwise, I suggest merging all these books into the "C Programming" book. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 17:11, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

If the content belongs in this book, merge away. 2601:8B:C301:EFF3:28C4:6E8A:E0E6:98F4 (discuss) 01:40, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that the Fundamentals book has useful stuff, but is overal redundant with this C Programming book so I am going to have a run at a merge .. if that goes well i will take a look at "Beginning C". From my first look at it the tutorial style is not so amenable to merging (IMHO). VulcanWikiEdit (discuss • contribs) 17:04, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

E-reader PDF won't download or open correctly
Hello there,

I have been trying to d/l the e-reader version to view on my tablet... but the link will not save correctly or open up in Adobe Reader.

Is this a known issue, or something new?

Thanks,

Monte Memilanuk (discuss • contribs) 01:20, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally I can open this book PDF with Firefox. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 06:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Dear Memilanuk,

you have to click on the image in the ebook reader pdf version in order to open the pdf file, it in deed does not open the pdf before you click on the image on the file description page. A possible solution is that we modify our template here, but I am to lazy to do so. Yours --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 17:01, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Well... hmm. I'm using Google Chrome on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4... if I tap on the link (single left click) it tries to open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If I tap & hold (equivalent to right-click) on the link, I get the contextual menu. I select "Save link", which it then tries to do. The resulting file is not recognized by the browser as a PDF, as it offers other programs to try and open it (besides the normal pdf viewers installed on here). If I try opening the file from Adobe Reader, I get an error message as well.

I tried opening the link in a new tab, which I guess is what you were talking about. There is a link there to the e-reader file... but the formatting appears rather... weird. Some pages are rotated one way, some another. The text won't re-flow. And the pages appear to run backwards as well.

Guess I'll stick with the regular version. Memilanuk (discuss • contribs) 05:16, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Major Restructure
I made a big restructure at reference section, here is its current form:
 * All header files are at the root of the book, because I think name collisions are not possible (all of them are postfixed with .h)
 * The functions are contained within their corresponding header file

Are there any objections? I think this is the simplest structure with minimal name collisions. --Strange quark (discuss • contribs) 10:52, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

New PDF Version
I made a new PDF version. I am eager to hear about any bugs you find in it. Yours Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 21:11, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

 * Your new pdf seems to have duplicated the old TOC structure from the print version, which I updated. --Strange quark (discuss • contribs) 10:35, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, I tried to compile the old source embedded in the C_Programming.pdf file with no success due to deprecated and obsolete packages (from MikTeX). Is there any fix to this?
 * P.s. I'm new to using wikipedia this way, I'm only using it when researching, etc.. Please bear with me.
 * That's all, thank you. 182.255.42.32 (discuss) 09:49, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

What standard of C
What standard of C is this wikibook about? Simulator-master (discuss • contribs) 10:44, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

 * I see that C Programming/Standard library reference has some information about ANSI C (C89), ISO C (C90), ISO C (C94/C95), ISO C (C99), ISO C (C11), and I'm hoping this book continues to be updated to at least mention future versions. (I suspect it doesn't mention C17 merely because C17 doesn't introduce any new language features).
 * I suspect people editing this book will generally test the examples with the default version that comes with their C compiler, which today is usually more-or-less C17 but is expected to switch to more-or-less C23 in a few years.
 * My understanding is most C code in the world, including all the examples in this book, work fine with C99 or later without any special consideration.
 * Simulator-master, What difference does it make? --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 01:58, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:C Programming