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Talk:Main Page/Archive 7

In 2001, Larry Sanger predicted the wiki would have 84,000 articles by mid-2008. At the current rate, we would have perhaps 320,000 articles by 2008. But since we reached Sanger's prediction in about 30% of the time allotted, then it stands to reason that by late 2004 we will have 320,000+ articles. I wonder when we will run out of topics. Juan Hernandez

 * You also have to figure in the fact that 30,000 of our articles were created by a bot with US census data for nearly every US city and town. --mav

 * Can someone add the data for Augusta, Georgia, the bot seemed to skip over the the second largest city in Georgia for some reason. Considering nothing exciting has ever happened there it's not suprising that no one has yet created an article for this city. ;) - smp

 * Add it to the list at User:Rambot. -- John Owens 16:52 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

So then we could probably expect another couple million articles generated in that manner for other countries.hmmm.....big site Juan Hernandez

Yet another question...Might the person who enabled the By Alphabetical Order page so that it includes at least an archived record, consider doing it, if he/she is so empowered, for http://wiktionary.org as well?

 * Wiktionary is behind on updates, as it has some customized code in there (mostly for saying "Wiktionary" instead of "Wikipedia" ;). At some point it does need updating, and that'll be in with the rest. --Brion 17:23 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

I am trying to update the http://sa.wikipedia.org pages but it keeps linking to http://www.wikipedia.org, is there a way to fix this that a user can do. Thanks!

 * That's because we don't have a Wikipedia set-up in that language yet. Post a message to Intlwiki-L and nicely ask a developer to set one up for you. It may take some time though becasue of technical reasons. --mav

On April 29, it is noted that this is the anniversary of the Bounty. Clicked on teh bounty, and found out it's the 28th. I am in Timezone GMT+10 (Western Pacific). Just wondering.
 * The historical anniversaries are a running list... some will refer to dates other than today.

- http://pd.wikipedia.com and pd.wikipedia.org are redirected to wikipedia.org. But meanwhile there is a Low Saxon Wikipedia at http://za.wikipedia.com. Is it possible to redirect pd.wikipedia.com to za wikipedia.org or - better - transfer the content of za.wikipedia.com to use pd.wikipedia.org?

pd.wikipedia.org is the domain given in wikipedia available for the Low Saxon language (Plattdüütsch) 213.39.207.24 19:39 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)~

Vieques needs to be on Main page current events, and maybe, Im not sure but maybe, Mexicana de Aviacion too.

We should talk to bantam books or a big publisher so our encyclopedia gets published into the largest and most informative encyclopedia book ever.

and where are those counters? LOL

Antonio Orgy Martin

 * Ask and ye shall receive. The update, that is, not the orgy. -- John Owens

Someone needs to set the width of the "Selected Articles" table to 600 pixels. Admins keep adding stuff to the historical aniversaries and the formatting gets all messed up. -- 165.247.201.82 08:11 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

 * Fixed. Some Admins are new and have their screens at 800 px wide so it looks fine to them (not to me though). --mav

What's Battle of the Nile doing? It happened the first of August, not first of May, so unless I'm not understanding something it shouldn't be there. Geoffrey 11:05 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

 * Removed. I have no idea why that was listed - it's not even on the May 1 page.... --mav

-- Edwin Rosario should be on historical anniversary on the main page on May 1

Thank you and God bless

Sincerely yours, Antonio El Demonio Martin

 * I would but then that would mean Chernobyl and another listing would drop off. We can't list everything - that is what the day pages are for. --mav

Antonio Cheerful One Martin
 * Agreed

Why did Beltane disappear from the main page? - Logotu 18:37 May 1, 2003 (UTC)

 * Because we can't list everything - and there is a lot to list for May 1. --mav

 * Right-o, then. Out of curiousity Is there some set number of entries, or what? - Logotu

 * No. But the resulting size has to work on both standard res (800 x 600) and high res (1024 x 768+) screens. Also, a typical day will have 3 entries listed while a day like May 1 will have two to three times as many entries listed. --mav

Since the Iraq War category is off the main page, perhaps we should bring back the "Ongoing Events" category? -- Infrogmation 11:11 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

 * I would vote against it. The links on current events seem to be enough for me and nobody ever updated Background articles for ongoing events. --mav

 * I agree with Mav. On the other hand, how about a Talk: What an Encyclopedia is or should be to you page?

Antonio To The Batcave!!! Martin - I need help with the Tim Duncan page: I need someone to format me a table on the Career stats areas, cause it doesnt look that good the way it is now, and I dont know how to do tables and stuff.

I'd appreciate it.

Thank you and God bless you!!

''AntonioMartin

 * I wasn't sure that a table was necessary, so I tried just changing the lists around a bit. I think it looks all right now, but tell me if you disagree. I don't think this is the right page to ask about such things, though. It should be for discussing the Main Page! You can ask general queries on the village pump, such as, "Help! How do I do tables?" The answer is to just copy and paste a table from a page that already has one, and just change the contents. :) -- Oliver P. 19:26 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Please add Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's b-day to the main page. MB 19:09 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

 * Only events go in the historical anniversaries section. --mav

 * I do have to say, through, that I think maybe a list of Happy Birthdays or Happy Birthday to should go in the main page

 * Antonio Electrified Martin

-- "This is a read-only backup missing several features such as logged-in users and image uploads. "

Is it my imagination or did I just edit? --mav

Yep--Jason and I apparently crossed paths. The main server went down, so he switched the IP to point to the new server, where Brion and I had a read-only backup running. When I went to edit the front page, the old server was already back up and I edited that instead. LDC

 * You're having one of those dreams again, Mav. ;) -- John Owens

So there isn't any good reason for there to be a dash after every hyphen? I never did like those extra spaces at the ends of lines. -- John Owens 20:24 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Lonelypages is one month old, and many links are useless, as they've since been linked. Anyone able to update this? - user:zanimum

Why is George Galloway on the main page as "Galloway"?

 * It was shortened like that for space concerns. Otherwise, the "in the news" section would have pushed past the end of the line and wrapped to next line on 800x600 screens. It probably wasn't the best shortening, but the only alternative is the removal of the link. -- Minesweeper

There seems to be a severe problem with the main page with my browser - it is refusing to load and crashing altogether. I'm running IE6.0 on Windows 98. The problem is caused by the Korean characters in the languages section - take those out, and the problem goes away.

Now of course, this is Microsoft's fault, not ours. But if this is affecting a significant number of users, including new users, it could be quite a problem. Perhaps we could consider taking out the offending characters for the time being, although of course this wouldn't be ideal.

Has anyone else been having the same problem? Enchanter

Can someone please consider adding the Welsh and Low Saxon languages? thanks, Aldie 07:51 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

 * If not yet there, you can add them also to The provisional portal of Wikipedia Giskart 12:51 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

OK, I did Welsh, but what's the URL for the Low Saxon one? (I can't find a language code for that). -- Toby 12:59 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

OK, I found it (za). Done. -- Toby 13:50 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Please add Dave DeBusschere to Recent Deaths MB 22:46 14 May 2003 (UTC)

Done, but you might consider making a more substantial article for him. Fred Bauder 13:14 May 15, 2003 (UTC)

I just want to say thank you for letting me enjoy such a wonderful experience as Wikipedia. I had never been to a place where I could talk about the things that I think are important in life, in a neutral way, of course.

I never plan to retire from here so you'll guys will be dealing with me for a LOOOONNNG time! LOL

Thanks and God bless you all! Antonio Glamour Baby! Martin

Please add the 2001 anthrax attack to In the news. See Current events May 11. MB 20:28 15 May 2003 (UTC)
 * You have to update 2001 anthrax attack with the latest news so that people will know why it's listed on the front page. -- Minesweeper 20:37 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
 * Done, please add to main now. MB 21:40 15 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Added. -- Minesweeper

-- San Antonio Spurs should be In the news, and George Francis in recent deaths on the main page

Antonio Here I am! Rocking like a Hurricane!! Martin

 * Our article on the Spurs is embarrassing and doesn't have any context in it telling the reader why  it warrents listing (they weren't the only ones to win last night either; also, this is a minor win as far of the entire team history is concerned - we will only record something when and if they win the championships). But bio meets the specs. --mav

Could Rik Van Steenbergen be added to recent deaths? I just wrote a short biography, hoping some Belgians can add to it. Jeronimo

 * Done. --mav 06:53 16 May 2003 (UTC)

Is it just me or has the article counter got stuck at 120,701 articles? -fonz

 * Same here... --mav 19:02 16 May 2003 (UTC)

June Carter Cash, singer and wife of Johnny Cash, died May 15, aged 73. Uyanga 20:50 16 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Done. --mav

Please add FA Cup to "in the news", it is the FA Cup final today Mintguy 11:47 17 May 2003 (UTC)

 * I may have missed it but I don't see any entry in current events mentioning that fact nor do I see that the article has been updated to reflect this piece of information. This is also not the type of thing we would be adding to that article anyway. However, as soon as there is a clear winner we will list the updated article on the winner after the fact of their win is made clear on current events (per our guidelines on this; see Selected Articles on the Main Page). Context is needed otherwise a person clicking on FA Cup will not know why in the world we have that article listed on the Main Page. --mav 01:03 18 May 2003 (UTC)

 * The article is fixed now per the guidelines so I put it on the Main Page. --mav

 * I was just about to say I'd fixed it (to be honest, I wasn't sure if the date in the FA Cup article was mentioned too far down, but I guess it's OK) - thanks mav :) --Camembert

And could someone include Wendy Hiller in the "Recent Deaths", please? She was a very great actress. Deb 22:52 17 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Done. ---mav

I'm confused. I just want some clarification. I thought that when adding new Historical anniversaries, they are to be put at the beginning of the list. Anne Boleyn and Mary I were placed in the middle of the list. Just want some clarification. Kingturtle 02:02 21 May 2003 (UTC)

 * I believe the thinking here is that Historical anniversaries should be listed in chronological order. Thus, new ones like you added should be placed at the front of the list. Mav's are from a few days ago (May 19), so he's slipping them in where they fit chronologically. -- Minesweeper 02:11 21 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Yes, that is exactly it. I should have been more clear King of the Turtles (I just love that nick, BTW :). --mav

How do articles get placed into catgories (maybe I just missed that somewhere)? Is there a category of "Military Science" or some other place where one can place ship histories, etc.?

 * Yes there is: Military science. If you're looking for ship articles, take a look at List of ships of the Royal Navy, List of ships of Japanese navy, List of ships of the United States Navy, List of ships of the line of the United States Navy, and List of museum ships. -- Minesweeper 21:37 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I don't like the "new articles" section. How are the articles chosen for that anyway? I would rather have an "article of the day" section. LittleDan 01:37 22 May 2003 (UTC)

 * ? New articles are added daily to the Selected Articles box. They are grouped into several different categories based on timely relevance to the current date. If you want to be presented with any old random article then use the Random Article feature of the software. --mav

 * but if we had an "article[s] of the day" section, we'd put developed articles there about relatively obscure topics that don't happen on that day. If you want new articles, just look on the "new articles" feature of wikipedia. I don't see the merit of putting randomly seletcted new stubs on the homepage. I'd rather see randomly selected *good* articles for people to come by and say "wow, wikipedia has great articles on such-and-such relatively obscure topic." and learn about it, instead of being presented with the stub-of-the-day. LittleDan 00:34 23 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Dan, do you mean going to "recent changes" and looking for articles with an N next to them? I think the "new articles" feature on the main page is more convenient and more appealing to people who may come upon wikipedia for the first time (i.e. through the main page).  I don't see a problem with it; there are all sorts of ways people may want to get into wikipedia and this offers one.  Also, the somewhat random or disjointed character of the list on the mainpage I think give people just one more vivid indication of the breadth of wikipedia, and the diversity of our interests.  I'm sorry you do not like it, but I just don't see any compelling reason to get rid of it. Slrubenstein
 * Just so you know, a much easier approach than looking for the N's is Special:Newpages, accessible from the dropdown menu at the top of the page as "Newly created articles". -- John Owens 04:22 23 May 2003 (UTC)

 * The articles are currently chosen mostly be me, as I created that section a few days ago and other sysops have yet to join me in editing it. It is mostly an experiment and will be removed if it does not work. You may not have noticed it, but the idea behind that section is actually very similar to what you are proposing, namely, to give exposure to our fleshed out new articles. I deliberately only add those articles that are reasonably well written and preferably non-stubbish. In selecting these articles, I also have to go through Newpages, deleting nonsense pages and fixing stubs along the way. So I think the section is worth keeping not only because of the exposure it gives to our most recent works (regardless of whether there is currently any timely interest regarding the topic or not), but also because it encourages those who edit it to go through Special:Newpages, which are somewhat neglected in comparison to Recent Changes. I think agreeing on which these new pages are going to be is going to be much easier than choosing a single "Article of the day". --Eloquence 04:42 23 May 2003 (UTC)

 * "...because it encourages those who edit it to go through Special:Newpages, which are somewhat neglected in comparison to Recent Changes." Ah. So that is your ulterior motive in all this! :-) In that case I now think that section is pretty darn cool and should stay - however the Historical anniversaries section already sucks up much of my Wikipedia time as it is so I don't have much time to contribute much to the other sections. BTW, one of main reasons why I created the Historical anniversaries section was to direct more attention to the day pages and the linked history/bio articles so that they can be updated and expanded. Hang in there Eloquence, I'm sure other people will start to contribute to the section in a month or two ; esp. if you suddenly go on vacation like I did. --mav

 * I love the New Articles bit. Keeps me uptodate on the latest great work done here :) Kingturtle 07:54 23 May 2003 (UTC)

There's a small typo in East Timor in the list of anniversaries - it reads E. TImor. As I'm no sysop I cannot fix it myself. andy 08:03 22 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Fixed. :) -- Minesweeper 08:06 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Can Eurovision be put up on the main page? 1)It's its anniversary and 2) its on today. -fonzy

 * ? Why? I don't see anything about Eurovision in current events or in reference to any Historical anniversary. Nor do I see any link to a day page even close to the current day of the year at Eurovision. --mav

 * Well, it is true that you have to follow some of the links, like to ESC 1956 and ESC 2003 to see the relevant dates. But then, I'm not sure you didn't already know that, and were just hinting to Fonzy that the dates mentioned should be on the Eurovision page itself, and perhaps they should be on the May 24 and 1956 in music and 2003 in music pages. -- John Owens 10:25 24 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Hmm, the links are already there on those date/year pages. So I guess it's just the Eurovision page itself and the current events that you're waiting on? -- John Owens 10:28 24 May 2003 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to do like the French Wikipedia and state "Site graciously hosted by Bomis (www.bomis.com)". Should we add this? --Geoffrey 19:52 25 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Interesting point. You should take it up on the WikiEN-L. --mav

--- Anna Santisteban should be on Main Page, Recent Deaths.

Antonio In love with Love Martin

 * Done. --mav 23:19 25 May 2003 (UTC)

I suggest "already working" -> "working" or "currently working". "already" probably isn't appropriate for a two year old site... :)

Hi, here's a minor suggestion: how about linkifying January 15 and 2001 in "We started on January 15, 2001"? --schnee

 * For that part of the text we are trying to only link that which is most relevant so that new users are directed to where we want them to go (note that every current link except Wikipedia is to a Wikipedia meta page). --mav 09:40 27 May 2003 (UTC)

The Stanley Cup finals start tonight - you might want to add that to the current events section. The NBA finals start next week as well. Kirjtc2 20:05 27 May 2003 (UTC)

 * They will only be listed if the current event is important enough to warrent updating the article (with the appropriate day and year links) and is listed on current events. Otherwise there is no way for a reader to know why the article is being listed. See Selected Articles on the Main Page. --mav

Suggest noting the death of Luciano Berio on the main page. He was a major 20th century composer, and his Sinfonia is a particular favourite of mine. IHCOYC 00:09 28 May 2003 (UTC)

 * I've added him. He was indeed a major figure. Sad news. Hopefully I'll be able to expand the article on him over the next few days. --Camembert

I posted this to the WikiEN-l list but realise this is the correct place to post such requests. Apologies for the mis-posting!

On Monday, Peter Hollingworth resigned as Governor-General of Australia. I have added an item to Current events and updated the Hollingworth and G-G pages. Does this warrant an "In the news" listing on the main page?

Claudine 01:51 28 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Yep. That's all we ask. --mav 02:07 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Mav! I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Claudine 02:56 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Can we make an exception to the "no birthdays" in historic anniversaries for centenials? Perhaps Bob Hope could go in the In the news section, but of course he hasn't done anything noteworthy recently, other than not die before the 100th anniversary of his birth. -- Infrogmation 00:38 29 May 2003 (UTC)

 * I for one am willing to make such an exception - but only for 100 year increments. --mav
 * That's all I asked for. I just wish I'd gotten that exception prior to Bix's centenial. -- Infrogmation 04:00 29 May 2003 (UTC)
 * There's always next time. :) --mav 04:04 29 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Do we really want to ever do this for centennial birthdays of people who aren't still alive? Or should it be limited to people who've survived to their century mark? -- John Owens 04:06 29 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Only for those living, IMHO. Kingturtle 04:19 29 May 2003 (UTC)
 * Which inevitably leads to the paradox, that very few living centenarians will have done anything lately. ;) But I'm willing to overlook that, for those with noteworthy past accomplishments, like Leslie. -- John Owens 04:28 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Suggesting mellophone as a "new article" -- I think it's a pretty good article, myself ;-) -- bdesham 00:42 29 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Of course you do - you wrote it. :-) Nice article, BTW. --mav 01:12 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Mav, I replaced Eurovision with Champions League because the champion's league final was approximately 12 hours ago, and it's the biggest club football (soccer) event in the world. The result was added, but looking now I see that there's nothing to indicate that the final was held very recently. --Robert Merkel
 * I agree. I also think it's about time we take down the FA Cup. Erzengel 08:23 29 May 2003 (UTC)

 * A day link to the correct day is needed so that somebody reading the article knows why it is listed. --mav

 * Isnt the World Cup the biggest soccer event in the world?

Antonio Kicker-Goalie Martin

Could somebody please add "Beagle 2" to the list of New Articles. I think there will probably be a lot of interest in this shortly, (it is due to be launched in 4 days time), but what I have written is currently little more than a stub. Maybe inclusion in "New Articles" would encourage somebody to flesh it out a bit. Thanks. GrahamN 17:31 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Mav, why would you removed The Rite of Spring so quickly? Its premiere is one of the most famous premieres in western music history. Why not remove an item that is a few days out of date instead of this one, which was only a day old? Kingturtle 04:43 30 May 2003 (UTC)

 * Sorry. I didn't know it was that important compared to the other events that happened on May 29 (such as the fall of the Byzantine Empire or the confirmation of General relativity). --mav

 * It isn't often when an opening causes a literal riot. thanks for putting it back :) Kingturtle 07:23 30 May 2003 (UTC)

Maybe Iraqi Airways should be on main page, current events

Antonio Fight! Fight! Fight! Martin

 * Done. --mav

Can we have a "," in the number of pages? Harry Potter

 * While it's a good sign that we need one, this won't be possible without a software change, because that number is autogenerated. If it's important to you, drop Brion a message, he loves to hack that kind of thing.  --Eloquence 11:32 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Why would we want a comma? All that does is cause confusion between American and European standards.

Could a sysop add the death of Ilya Prigogine to the Main Page? Thanks. James F. 20:53 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Done. MB 20:59 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Please consider adding British American Racing (BAR) to the new articles section, Aldie 12:55 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Will do. Just let me find a couple other articles, and then I'll add them.  MB 13:33 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Something for historical annivesaries for the 6th: Aram Khachaturian was born 100 years ago on the 6th. MB 14:01 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * placement of content disclaimer -> Wikipedia talk:Content disclaimer/placement

I don't think it makes sense to have "other category schemes" listed on the front page of wikipedia. Most people don't understand that the first group of links is for a specific category scheme. LittleDan 02:03 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Could we please add Pentecost to the main page? I'm not sure about the policy where to put it. "In the news" or "historical anniversaries", both don't fit exactly ... -- JeLuF 08:06 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * Added to the anniversaries. --Infrogmation 17:30 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Diary of a Nobody is just a little over stub-size. The article is not impressive enough yet to be offerred up as Wikipedia's finest new articles. I suggest it be removed and replaced with something more substantial. Kingturtle 18:11 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * Go for it, Kingturtle. --Commoner Frog-mation

-- Maybe International Boxing Hall of Fame should be in Main Page Current Events (or In the news)...maybe --Antonio Homewrecker Martin

 * Only if the current event is historic enough for us to update the article. --mav

Actually, I had to update the article. I put the names of the newly inducted people in the article.

Antonio Wild Sider Martin

User:Fred Bauder wrote social structure of the United States and added it as an article at 13.10. At 13.14 he then put it on the Main Page as a new article. Now I don't wish to complain about specifics of that article BUT is it right that a sysop can make the unilateral decision that their work is worthy of the main page... surely another sysop should add such an article to the main page as they see fit - i.e. it undergoes the same procedure as a non-sysop. This would be consistent with the submissions policy on Brilliant Prose. Pcb21 12:32 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't think it's an abuse of privileges, but it would probably be good form to update the rest of the list if you add a page that you wrote yourself. In addition, Fred broke the page layout by adding a very long link. --Eloquence 15:15 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * If you have a problem with this, please mention it on Fred's user talk page so that he is sure to know about it. MB 15:23 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Perhaps abuse would be a little strong a term for it. But it does engender (in me, at least) a feeling of a two-tier hierachy in wikipedia that we want to avoid. I thought sysop-ness was supposed to be a burden not a priviliege :-) Pcb21 16:25 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * AFAIK there's been no statement of policy that a sysop can't put a page they created on New Pages section of the Main page, but I wouldn't object to such a policy in the future. Perhaps new pages could be mentioned or nominated here on the talk page, and some other sysop could add or ignore them as they think best. Pondering, -- Infrogmation 22:34 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Trevor Goddard died. Pizza Puzzle
 * MB 14:47 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The Ball point pen article doesn't seem to have any indication of why it is now an historic anniversary; could someone who knows why please add that info to the article? -- Infrogmation 22:34 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * "Biro first patented the pen in 1938 and applied for a fresh patent in Argentina on June 10, 1943"

Under "new articles", could we/should we have a section on "rewritten articles" or "fixed stubs" or "improved articles" where we can point to articles that have just been changed from stubs into brilliant prose, or otherwise massively improved? Martin

 * It seems like it would be difficult to wade through recent changes to find rewritten articles (wouldn't you have to check the history?). Is there a better method? -- Notheruser 16:31 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Main Page/Archive 7


text:
Frederick James Furnivall

Frederick James Furnivall (4 February 1825 – 2 July 1910) was an English philologist, best known as one of the co-creators of the New English Dictionary. He founded a number of learned societies on early English literature and made pioneering and massive editorial contributions to the subject, of which the most notable was his parallel text edition of The Canterbury Tales. He was one of the founders of and teachers at the London Working Men's College and a lifelong campaigner against injustice.

Life
Frederick James Furnivall was born on 4 February 1825 in Egham, Surrey, the son of a surgeon who had made his fortune from running the Great Fosters lunatic asylum. He was educated at University College, London, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he took an undistinguished mathematics degree. He was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn in 1849 and practised desultorily until 1870.

In 1862 Furnivall married Eleanor Nickel Dalziel (c. 1838 – 1937). Some authors describe her as a lady's maid, which would have been a socially unusual match at the time, although her social status is disputed. Some time before 1866, Furnivall lost a child, Eena, whom he described as "my sweet, bright, only child". He lost his inheritance in a financial crash in 1867. When he was 58, he separated from Eleanor and their one surviving son to continue a relationship with a 21-year-old female editor named Teena Rochfort-Smith. Two months after his formal separation from Eleanor, in 1883, Rochfort-Smith suffered serious burns while burning correspondence in Goole and died.

Furnivall was a non-smoker and teetotaller all his life. He took interest in physical fitness and was a vegetarian for twenty-five years.

Furnivall died on 2 July 1910.

Oxford English Dictionary
Furnivall was one of the three founders and, from 1861 to 1870, the second editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Despite his scholarship and enthusiasm, his stint as editor of the OED nearly ended the project. For a dictionary maker he had an unfortunate lack of patience, discipline and accuracy. After having lost the sub-editors for A, I, J, N, O, P, and W through his irascibility or caprice, he finally resigned. He continued, however, to provide thousands of quotations for the dictionary until his death. OED editor James Murray said of Furnivall: "He has been by far the most voluminous of our 'readers', and the slips in his handwriting and the clippings by him from printed books, and from newspapers and magazines, form a very large fraction of the millions in the Scriptorium."

Furnivall joined the Philological Society in 1847 and was its Secretary from 1853 almost until his death in 1910 at the age of 85.

He received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Oxford and an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Berlin. In April 1902 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Literary societies
Furnivall indefatigably promoted the study of early English literature. He founded a series of literary and philological societies: the Early English Text Society (1864), the Chaucer Society (1868), the Ballad Society (1868), the New Shakspere Society (1873), the Browning Society (1881, with Emily Hickey), the Wyclif Society (1882), and the Shelley Society (1885). Some of these, notably the Early English Text Society, were very successful; all were characterised by extreme controversy. The most acrimonious of all was the New Shakspere Society, scene of a bitter dispute between Furnivall and Algernon Charles Swinburne.

These societies were primarily textual publishing ventures. Furnivall edited texts for the Early English Text Society, for the Roxburghe Club and the Rolls Series; but his most important work was on Geoffrey Chaucer. His "Six-Text" edition of the Canterbury Tales was a new conception. It has been described as containing full and accurate transcriptions, though some modern scholars disagree about his merits as an editor. His work, and that of the amateurs he recruited, was often slapdash, but it was substantial, and it laid the foundation for all subsequent editions. He was one of a small group of Victorian scholars who have been credited with establishing the academic study of English literature.

Working Men's College
In the 1850s, Furnivall became involved in various Christian socialist schemes and his circle included Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin. It was through this group that he became one of the founders of the Working Men's College, and although he later became agnostic he always retained a connection with the college. He conceived of the college as a classless, democratic community of learning. One biographer wrote that he formed there a conviction that "scholarship could be pursued by quite ordinary people in a spirit of good-humoured enthusiasm" that was to be the key to his later life.

Rowing
Furnivall was always an enthusiastic oarsman, and kept up his interest in rowing till the end of his life. With John Beesley in 1845, he introduced the new type of narrow sculling boat, and in 1886 started races on the Thames for sculling fours and sculling eights. In 1896 Furnivall founded the Hammersmith Sculling Club (now called Furnivall Sculling Club), initially for working-class girls, and he "entered into its activities with his usual boyish enthusiasm, for it brought together two of his favourite activities: vigorous outdoor exercise and enjoyment of the company of young women".

Furnivall the sculler may have been the original of his acquaintance Kenneth Grahame's character Ratty in The Wind in the Willows and it has also been suggested that he inspired the portrayal of the god Pan in the same work.

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

title: Frederick James Furnivall


text:
Battle of Lake Erie

The Battle of Lake Erie, also known as the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, on Lake Erie off the shore of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the British Royal Navy. This ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the largest naval battles of the War of 1812.

1812
When the war broke out, the British immediately seized control of Lake Erie. They already had a small force of warships there: the sloop-of-war Queen Charlotte and the brig General Hunter. The schooner USS Lady Prevost (1812) was under construction and was put into service a few weeks after the outbreak of war. These vessels were controlled by the Provincial Marine, which was a military transport service and not a naval service. Nevertheless, the Americans lacked any counter to the British armed vessels. The only American warship on Lake Erie, the brig Adams, was not ready for service at the start of the war, and when the American army of Brigadier General William Hull abandoned its invasion of Canada, Adams was pinned down in Detroit by the British batteries at Sandwich on the Canadian side of the Detroit River. The British Major-General Isaac Brock used his control of the lake to defeat Hull's army at the Siege of Detroit, by cutting the American supply lines and rapidly transferring himself and some reinforcements to Amherstburg from where they launched a successful landing on the American side of the Detroit River.

The British took Adams when Detroit was surrendered, renaming her HMS Detroit (1812). Together with the brig USS Caledonia (1812), which had been commandeered from the Canadian North West Company, she was boarded and captured near Fort Erie on 9 October, by American sailors and soldiers led by Lieutenant Jesse Elliot. Detroit ran aground on an island in the middle of the Niagara River and was set on fire to prevent her being recaptured. Caledonia was taken to the navy yard at Black Rock and commissioned into the United States Navy. Also present at Black Rock were the schooners USS Somers (1812) and USS Ohio (1812) and the sloop-rigged USS Trippe (1812), which had all been purchased by the United States Navy and were being converted into gunboats. While the British held Fort Erie and the nearby batteries which dominated the Niagara River, all these vessels were pinned down and unable to leave Black Rock.

Late in 1812, Paul Hamilton, the United States Secretary of the Navy had received long-time American lake mariner Daniel Dobbins, who had escaped capture at Detroit and brought information on the British forces on Lake Erie. Dobbins recommended the bay of Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania as a naval base on the lake. ("Presqu'isle" is French for "peninsula", literally "almost an island"). Dobbins was dispatched to build four gunboats there, although Lieutenant Elliot objected to the lack of facilities. Another problem was that a sand bar extended across the entrance to the harbor at Presque Isle, which would prove to make it very difficult to get newly constructed U.S. ships out to open water. In September, Dobbins began directing the cutting of trees. By November, Ebenezer Crosby, a master shipwright, was hired by Dobbins to start work on the four wooden ships. Commodore Isaac Chauncey had been appointed to the command of the United States naval forces on the Great Lakes in September 1812. He made one brief visit to Erie on 1 January 1813 where he approved Dobbins's actions and recommended collecting materials for a larger vessel, but then returned to Lake Ontario where he afterwards concentrated his energies.

1813
In January 1813, William Jones (who had replaced Hamilton as the United States Secretary of the Navy) ordered the construction of two brig-rigged corvettes at Presque Isle, and transferred shipwright Noah Brown there from Sackets Harbor on Lake Ontario to take charge of construction. Other than their rig and crude construction (such as using wooden pegs instead of nails because of shortages of the latter), the two brigs were close copies of the contemporary USS Hornet (1805, brig). The heaviest armament for the ships came from foundries on Chesapeake Bay, and were moved to Presque Isle only with great difficulty. (The Americans were fortunate in that some of their largest cannon had been dispatched shortly before raiding parties under Rear-Admiral George Cockburn destroyed a foundry at Frenchtown on the eastern seaboard.) However, the Americans could get other materials and fittings from Pittsburgh, which was expanding as a manufacturing center, and smaller guns were borrowed from the Army.

Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry had earlier been appointed to command on Lake Erie, through lobbying by Jeremiah B. Howell, the Senior Senator from Rhode Island, supplanting Lieutenant Elliot. He arrived at Presque Isle to take command at the end of March. Having arranged for the defense of Presque Isle, he proceeded to Lake Ontario to obtain reinforcements of seamen from Commodore Isaac Chauncey. After commanding the American schooners and gunboats at the Battle of Fort George, he then went to Black Rock where the American vessels had been released when the British abandoned Fort Erie at the end of May. Perry had them towed by draft oxen up the Niagara, an operation which took six days, and sailed with them along the shore to Presque Isle.

Meanwhile, Commander Robert Heriot Barclay was appointed to command the British squadron on Lake Erie. Another British officer had already endangered his career by refusing the appointment as success appeared unlikely. Barclay missed a rendezvous with Queen Charlotte at Point Abino and was forced to make the tedious journey to Amherstburg overland, arriving on 10 June. He brought with him only a handful of officers and seamen. When he took command of his squadron, the crews of his vessels numbered only seven British seamen, 108 officers and men of the Provincial Marine (whose quality Barclay disparaged), 54 men of the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles and 106 soldiers, effectively landsmen, from the 41st Foot. Nevertheless, he immediately set out in Queen Charlotte and Lady Prevost. He first reconnoitred Perry's base at Presque Isle and determined that it was defended by 2,000 Pennsylvania militia, with batteries and redoubts. He then cruised the eastern end of Lake Erie, hoping to intercept the American vessels from Black Rock. The weather was hazy, and he missed them.

During July and August, Barclay received two small vessels, the schooner HMS Chippeway (1812) and the sloop HMS Little Belt (1812), which had been reconstructed at Chatham on the Thames River and attempted to complete the ship-rigged corvette HMS Detroit (1813) at Amherstburg. Because the Americans controlled Lake Ontario and occupied the Niagara Peninsula in early 1813, supplies for Barclay had to be carried overland from York. The American victory earlier in the year at the Battle of York resulted in the guns (24-pounder carronades) intended for Detroit falling into American hands. Detroit had to be completed with a miscellany of guns from the fortifications of Amherstburg. Barclay claimed at his court martial that these guns lacked flintlock firing mechanisms and matches, and that they could be fired only by snapping flintlock pistols over powder piled in the vent holes.

Barclay repeatedly requested men and supplies from Commodore James Lucas Yeo, commanding on Lake Ontario, but received very little. The commander of the British troops on the Detroit frontier, Major-General Henry Procter, was similarly starved of soldiers and munitions by his superiors. He declined to make an attack on Presque Isle unless he was reinforced, and instead he incurred heavy losses in an unsuccessful attack on Fort Stephenson, which he mounted at the urgings of some of his Indian warriors.

Blockades of Presque Isle and Amherstburg
By mid-July, the American squadron was almost complete, although not yet fully manned (Perry claimed to have only 120 men fit for duty). The British squadron maintained a blockade of Presque Isle for ten days from 20 to 29 July. The harbour had a sandbar across its mouth, with only 5 ft of water over it, which prevented Barclay sailing in to attack the American ships (although Barclay briefly skirmished with the defending batteries on 21 July), but also prevented the Americans leaving in fighting order. Barclay had to lift the blockade on 29 July because of shortage of supplies and bad weather. It has also been suggested that Barclay left to attend a banquet in his honour, or that he wished the Americans to cross the bar and hoped to find them in disarray when he returned. Perry immediately began to move his vessels across the sandbar. This was an exhausting task. The guns had to be removed from all the boats, and the largest of them had to be raised between "camels" (barges or lighters which were then emptied of ballast). When Barclay returned four days later, he found that Perry had nearly completed the task. Perry's two largest brigs were not ready for action, but the gunboats and smaller brigs formed a line so confidently that Barclay withdrew to await the completion of Detroit.

Chauncey had dispatched 130 extra sailors under Lieutenant Jesse Elliot to Presque Isle. Although Perry described some of them as "wretched", at least 50 of them were experienced sailors drafted from USS Constitution, then undergoing a refit in Boston. Perry also had a few volunteers from the Pennsylvania militia.

His vessels first proceeded to Sandusky, where they received further contingents of volunteers from Major General William Henry Harrison's Army of the Northwest. After twice appearing off Amherstburg, Perry established an anchorage at Put-in-Bay, Ohio. For the next five weeks, Barclay was effectively blockaded and unable to move supplies to Amherstburg. His sailors, Procter's troops, and the very large numbers of Indian warriors and their families there quickly ran out of supplies. After receiving a last-minute reinforcement of two naval officers, three warrant officers and 36 sailors transferred from a transport temporarily laid up in Quebec under Lieutenant George Bignall, Barclay had no choice but to put out again and seek battle with Perry.

In the days preceding the battle, Perry told his friend, Purser Samuel Hambleton, that he wanted a signal flag, or battle flag, to signal to his fleet when to engage the enemy. Hambleton suggested using the dying words of Perry's friend Captain James Lawrence of the frigate USS Chesapeake (1799), "Don't Give up the Ship". Hambleton had the flag sewn by women of Erie, and presented it to Perry the day before the battle. The flag would become an icon in American naval history.

Battle

On the morning of 10 September, the Americans saw Barclay's vessels heading for them, and got under way from their anchorage at Put-in-Bay. The wind was light. Barclay initially held the weather gauge, but the wind shifted and allowed Perry to close and attack. Both squadrons were in line of battle, with their heaviest vessels near the centre of the line.

The first shot was fired, from Detroit, at 11:45. Perry hoped to get his two largest brigs, his flagship USS Lawrence (1813) and USS Niagara (1813), into carronade range quickly, but in the light wind his vessels were making very little speed and Lawrence was battered by the assortment of long guns mounted in Detroit for at least 20 minutes before being able to reply effectively. When Lawrence was finally within carronade range at 12:45, her fire was not as effective as Perry hoped, her gunners apparently having overloaded the carronades with shot.

Astern of Lawrence, Niagara, under Elliot, was slow to come into action and remained far out of effective carronade range. It is possible that Elliott was under orders to engage his opposite number, Queen Charlotte, and that Niagara was obstructed by the unhandy Caledonia, but Elliot's actions would become a matter of dispute between him and Perry for many years. Aboard Queen Charlotte, the British ship opposed to Niagara, the commander (Robert Finnis) and First Lieutenant were both killed. The next most senior officer, Lieutenant Irvine of the Provincial Marine, found that both Niagara and the American gunboats were far out of range, and passed the brig General Hunter to engage Lawrence at close range.

Although the American gunboats at the rear of the American line of battle steadily pounded the British ships in the centre of the action with raking shots from their long guns from a distance, Lawrence was reduced by the two British ships to a wreck. Four-fifths of Lawrence's crew were killed or wounded. Both of the fleet's surgeons were sick with "lake fever" (malaria), so the wounded were taken care of by the assistant, Usher Parsons. When the last gun on Lawrence became unusable, Perry decided to transfer his flag. He was rowed a half-mile (1 km) through heavy gunfire to Niagara while Lawrence was surrendered. It is said his personal servant, African American sailor Cyrus Tiffany, accompanied and protected Perry during this journey.

It was later alleged that Perry left Lawrence after the surrender, but he had actually taken down only his personal pennant, in blue bearing the motto, "Don't give up the ship".

When Lawrence surrendered, firing died away briefly. Detroit collided with Queen Charlotte, both ships being almost unmanageable with damaged rigging and almost every officer killed or severely wounded. Barclay was severely wounded and his first lieutenant was killed, leaving Lieutenant Inglis in command. Most of the smaller British vessels were also disabled and drifting to leeward. The British nevertheless expected Niagara to lead the American schooners away in retreat. Instead, once aboard Niagara, Perry dispatched Elliot to bring the schooners into closer action, while he steered Niagara at Barclay's damaged ships, helped by the strengthening wind.

Niagara broke through the British line ahead of Detroit and Queen Charlotte and luffed up to fire raking broadsides from ahead of them, while Caledonia and the American gunboats fired from astern. Although the crews of Detroit and Queen Charlotte managed to untangle the two ships they could no longer offer any effective resistance. Both ships surrendered at about 3:00 pm. The smaller British vessels tried to flee but were overtaken and also surrendered.

Although Perry won the battle on Niagara, he received the British surrender on the deck of the Lawrence.

Casualties
The British lost 41 killed and 94 wounded. The surviving crews, including the wounded, numbered 306. Captain Barclay, who had previously lost his left arm in 1809, lost a leg and part of his thigh in the action while his remaining arm was rendered "permanently motionless". The Americans lost 27 killed and 96 wounded, of whom 2 later died. The heaviest American casualties were suffered aboard Lawrence, which had 2 officers and 20 men killed, and 6 officers and 55 men wounded.

Of the vessels involved, the three most battered (the American brig Lawrence and the British ships Detroit and Queen Charlotte) were converted into hospital ships. A gale swept the lake on 13 September and dismasted Detroit and Queen Charlotte, further shattering the already battered ships. Once the wounded had been ferried to Erie, Lawrence was restored to service for 1814, but the two British ships were effectively reduced to hulks.

Aftermath
Perry's vessels and prizes were anchored and hasty repairs were underway near West Sister Island when Perry composed his now famous message to Harrison. Scrawled in pencil on the back of an old envelope, Perry wrote:

Perry next sent the following message to the Secretary of the Navy, William Jones:

Once his usable vessels and prizes were patched up, Perry ferried 2,500 American soldiers to Amherstburg, which was captured without opposition on 27 September. Meanwhile, 1,000 mounted troops led by Richard Mentor Johnson moved by land to Detroit, which also was recaptured without fighting on or about the same day. The British army under Procter had made preparations to abandon its positions even before Procter knew the result of the battle. In spite of exhortations from Tecumseh, who led the confederation of Indian tribes allied to Britain, Procter had already abandoned Amherstburg and Detroit and began to retreat up the Thames River on 27 September. Lacking supplies, Tecumseh's Indians had no option but to accompany him. Harrison caught up with Procter's retreating force and defeated them on 5 October at the Battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh was killed, as was his second-in command and most experienced warrior, Wyandot Chief Roundhead.

The victory on Lake Erie had disproportionate strategic import. The Americans controlled Lake Erie for the remainder of the war. This accounted for much of the Americans' successes on the Niagara peninsula in 1814 and also removed the threat of a British attack on Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Western New York.

However, an expedition in 1814 to recover Mackinac Island on Lake Huron failed, and the Americans lost eight of their smaller vessels and prizes. (Four were destroyed when the British captured Black Rock, where they were laid up, following the Battle of Buffalo at the end of 1813, and four were boarded and captured in separate incidents on Lake Erie and Lake Huron.)

After the war, there was a bitter quarrel between Perry and Elliot over their respective parts in the action, mostly fought at second hand in the press. On the British side, Barclay was exonerated of any blame by a court-martial but was too badly injured to see service again for several years.

Reconstructions and memorials
In 1820 Lawrence and Niagara were intentionally sunk near Misery Bay in Lake Erie, as they had "went to rot." In 1875, Lawrence was raised and moved to Philadelphia, where she was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Later that year, the ship burned when the pavilion that housed it caught fire. Although Niagara was raised and restored in 1913, she subsequently fell into disrepair. She was eventually disassembled, and portions of her were used in a reconstructed Niagara, which is now on view in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The 352 ft high Perry Monument within Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial now stands at Put-in-Bay, commemorating the men who fought in the battle.

Another 101 ft high Perry Monument is located at the eastern end of Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania. It stands on a peninsula in Presque Isle Bay, where Niagara and Lawrence were built, stationed along with the rest of the American Squadron, and then scuttled after the war.

Reasons for American victory
Most historians attribute the American victory to what Theodore Roosevelt described as "superior heavy metal" by citing the greater numbers of American ships and heavy cannon. Perry's leadership, particularly in the latter stages of the action, is also mentioned as a factor. The British historian C.S. Forester commented that "it was as fortunate for the Americans that the Lawrence still possessed a boat that would float, as it was that Perry was not hit."

On the British side, William Bell served as constructor and built Detroit, which was the best-built ship on the lake. However, Detroit was built slowly, in part because of Bell's perfectionism, and indeed, it was the only purpose-built British warship constructed on Lake Erie during the war. The guns intended for Detroit were seized by the Americans at the time of their raid on Fort York the year before. That building imbalance, given the fact that six American ships were built in the same time frame, was another important cause of the American victory although it might be argued that even if Barclay had possessed more hulls, he would have been unable to obtain armament and crews for them.

The court-martial of Captain Barclay and his surviving officers determined that the captain and his officers and men had "conducted themselves in the most gallant manner," and it found that the defeat was the result of American numerical superiority, an insufficient number of able seamen, and the early fall of superior officers in the action.

Order of battle
Listed in order of sailing:

title: Battle of Lake Erie


text:
User talk:Skipjackred

Greetings! If you need help on editing pages, you can go to the manual of style or to the "welcome, newcomer" section. Please realize that the fact you have a user ID doesn't mean you can irrevocably insert incorrect information in articles, so please stop it. Otherwise, have fun!-- goatasaur

title: User talk:Skipjackred


text:
Talk:Currying

Untitled

 * To do: Disambiguation to distinguish this term from caring for a horse and from currying favor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdesousa (talk • contribs) 17:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

 * To do: How about a practical example for currying helping to formulate clearer code? "What is it good for?" --84.114.179.138 17:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

the utility is only clear once you've worked with functional languages for a bit. nearly everyone, in almost every language, eventually curries (by my contentious and broad definition), but it is more clear, and more fundamental, when you move to (positive adjective) languages.

 * To Do: Good idea. It is very useful for list manipulation.  I may slice off my C# example and give a real application ((('a * 'b) -> 'b) -> 'b -> 'a list -> 'b  function applied to lists), but I'm not sure how much space it would deserve.

 * To Do: Link to the article about Foldr (and by extension foldl) perhaps? It is very common that you have a list of things that you want to turn into one big thing before outputting it. Here the functions foldr and foldl (Haskell and ML names) come in very handy for example in ML you can do

val sumList = foldr op+ 0 to get a function sumList that takes a list of integers and returns the sum of its elements. In other words, currying for the sake of currying is not very useful (though it may have some theoretical niceties such as it being possible to consider all functions as unary). You could even argue that all it does is save you a couple of parentheses.

 * To do: Add Scheme language definition for currying to any given depth.

(moved from the article -- Timwi 22:20 19 Jun 2003 (UTC))

 * To do: Add note that C++ is evolving the ability to curry functions via template libraries such as the Boost Libraries.

 * It already has the ability. Overloaded constructors and operator does exactly what currying does. KayEss | talk 05:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Schönfinkelisation
Who calls currying Schönfinkelisation? I see the link, but it is rather unhelpfdiaul, unless I want to buy the book. Google has three hits for Schönfinkelisation, two of which are this page, and one of which is a PDF in French that claims it is called Schönfinkelisation in Europe. I've spent some time in the UK, and they call it currying there. Is it just called Schönfinkelisation in France? Jm307 17:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Not on the French Wikipédia; they only have Curryfication. I never heard the term "Schönfinkelisation" on any continent. It may be that that term has some currency among logicians, while "Currying" is for programmers. --Lambiam Talk 18:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I forgot about this! So, is this just one of those "we'll take it on faith" things? Jm307 20:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Googling for  gives 54 hits, many of which can be connected to the Heim & Kratzer textbook.  --Lambiam Talk  00:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Right. This is the context I learned it in (logic/semantics). My instructor was Hungarian, for what its worth.AftonLewis (talk) 17:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

 * The term just isn't in common use. I've taken the liberty of currying the lead section. --Tony Sidaway 00:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Function schönfinkeling... yeah right! If anything this mention is a bit funny, and if it's factually correct (which I'm assuming it is), then I'm for keeping it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.135.120.222 (talk) 15:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

 * Although the question was asked in 2006, here's the answer: Currying is sometimes called Schönfinkeln in Germany. Schönfinkelisation is an englishified version of this. Cheers --08:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snowman25 (talk • contribs)

Is the c++ example bogus?
I think the c++ example is bogus. It is true that plus_one(2) does get you 3, but you can't pass plus_one to functions that take a function pointer as an argument. In other words, it's not a real function; it just looks like one when you call it in certain ways. Maw 00:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Define "function pointer". C++ is notable in that it can do everything - it can have real functions, with a statically defined pointer, that can be pointed to by C code and template-free C++ code, and it can have abstract functor objects to which any sort of computability-theoric transformation can be applied. By fully applying all the abstractions provided by the standard library alone (not counting the countless others provided by libraries like Boost), C++ can turn into another language altogether.

It's not real currying - agreed. It's just a class that takes an integer parameter in its constructor and has another function to add that integer to an extra parameter.. Dastle 05:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

 * If it's bogus we should not keep it. Therefore I've removed it. In general, let us agree that a language supports currying if in that language you can define some higher-order operation CURRY that, applied to some f : (X × Y) → Z, produces CURRY(f) : X → (Y → Z). The fact that in language FOO you can define both f : (X × Y) → Z and g : X → (Y → Z) does not already mean FOO supports currying. --Lambiam Talk  13:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I've created a true example of currying in C++ using one of the provided arithmetic functors. is everyone happy with it? Rob.desbois 09:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an example of partial application not currying, boost phoenix has currying support but the binders (both standard library and boost::(lambda)::bind) are not examples of currying. This page seems to confuse the matter of partial application and currying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.37.49.212 (talk • contribs)

Why the Perl6 example was suppressed?
Spayrard 23:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Perhaps because it was not really an example of currying? --Lambiam Talk 13:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Does Python support closures?
My understanding is that python doesn't support closures, so its presence in the list is incorrect 202.183.101.128 02:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Python introduced closures in 2001, as part of the 2.1 release; see PEP 227.  --Piet Delport 08:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Comprehensibility
The first half of the introduction (which put me off the rest until I decided to leave a note asking WTF it's good for and decided to double-check) and most examples is gobbledygook. The ML example was the most instructive, and I don't even know ML. One possible means of clarifying things (besides getting to the point early) is to describe currying as a factory for functions. It may also be necessary to separate the math from the programming for clarity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.212.241.202 (talk) 17:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

 * Yes, somebody please cleanup the text. The "simply put", isn't. --Belg4mit 22:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Scheme
Why can we not give an easier example for currying in scheme? Like (define (add x) (λ(y) (+ x y)))
 * add:number->(number->number)
 * Adding using currying

>((add 10) 10) 20

I am new to scheme and I found the example not much helpful.

 * I changed it. Comments on it please. --~rAGU

 * I updated it to match its description (e.g. a general currying function). I am not sure that this example is more readable or easier but it seems more conceptually aligned with scheme.--Jaimico 14:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Is the example given sufficiently similar to LISP that the example ought to be titled for both? Most Schemers/LISPy people are certainly aware of the relation between the two, but other readers might not be? --Belg4mit 22:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is close enough to Lisp in that this is one of the key divergences between (Common) Lisp and Scheme (split or single name spaces for functions and variables). If you want to curry in Common Lisp with functions (versus macros) is looks like this example from sourceforge. I find them rather different different.Jaimico 07:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jaimico, Thank you for explaining. But I feel the simpler and specific examples make the concept clear. Examples should require no or little scheme understanding to understand. I am thinking that adding constructs like 'f. arg' and 'append' make it less intuitive. ? ~rAGU

Greetings Raguks. I see and agree with your point. At the same time, it seems to me that there is a rather significant difference between a function that returns functions (as say the example in Python) and a function (functor) that maps arbitrary (functions, arguments) pairs into functions (as the example in Haskell). I am not sure that it would not have occurred to me to call the former currying. In any case, it is not clear cut: the Java example is in the middle of the two. It is now a general currying function (thus highlighting a possibility in the language) but perhaps "simple" has suffered. I added a short explanation following the Eiffel and Haskell examples. Does this help or make it worse?

Also, is it obvious that "examples should require little/no understanding of the language in which they are written"? It is not perfectly clear what the point of having code examples is. I see two possibilities. The first is to allow people to read an example in a language in which they are versant (in which case an assumption of familiarity is reasonable). The second is to highlight different capabilities and features of different languages (in which case simplicity needs be balanced against language expression).

I fear this is getting long-winded so I will thank you for the useful discussion and wait a bit. Jaimico 10:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

As per the discussion beneath "Currying != Generalized Partial Application", I updated the function to be curry (versus curry + evaluate). The discussion at LtU linked to is worth reading.Jaimico 12:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorted list
I've alphabetized the list of examples (which btw is far too long). Feel free to un-alphabetize it, but do apply /some/ order to the list. Alternative: nuke it. It's long and useless. Keep the Scheme example or such, as it does a good enough job of explaining what the concept is. -- vstarre

 * Reverted, the previous order was not random but rather functional languages (currying's origins) first, then ~alphabetic (people have been adding/moving things to break that). I personally never explicitly labeled the break as you could only say "functional/non-functional," and even then many languages cannot be clearly pigeonholed. --Belg4mit 00:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

 * I went ahead and did it anyway --Belg4mit 22:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Profusion of examples
I think we have enough examples, and probably don't need more. As it is, I'm tempted to remove the Io one. How relevant of a lanuage is this?? I'd also probably remove the Java instance because of it's sheer verbosity escept for the popularity of Java, and the fact that the keen observor will then recognize that some metaphors work well in some languages, and not so much in others. --Belg4mit 22:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

 * I changed the C# example to use LINQ - hope this is okay Pdhooper 21:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

My preference/suggestion is: ==> we can use the URL: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Algorithm_implementation/Miscellaneous.
 * 1) Sort the examples by time, in a timeline - This demonstrats any evolution, deviations (and/or popularity shifts) in the concept.
 * 2) * Keep atleast one example per decade
 * 3) ** 1950s, 1960s, 1970s etc
 * 4) * Keep examples that demonstrate some kind of historic innovation.
 * 5) * Keep examples that are famously short, or bad or in some other way notable. (e.g. Check out python's 3-line quick-sort)!!!
 * 6) Then where the concept has simply (and faithfully) been transmorgrified into a newer language, move the decendent example into Wikibooks.  Eg for currying

I find the examples in other languages especially useful - currying being a very good example - because I can quickly see if the languages supports the feature, and if there are "issues" in using the feature in the new language I am learning. Hence IMHO these examples should be retained in wikibooks.

The first example I saw of this approach was with Quicksort: ==>

This approach seems to work well.

NevilleDNZ 08:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, these examples must go: it's fine to incorporate illustrative examples into the narrative, but Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list or guide. (I'm not sure if Algorithm implementation exactly is the best place to put it (this is a technique, not so much an algorithm), but definitely somewhere on Wikibooks should be fine.)

As it stands, i don't think anything in the Examples section contributes significantly to article, so i'm going to be bold and drop it wholesale. The history can be used to port it to Wikibooks, or wherever. --Piet Delport 00:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting example of being bold. NevilleDNZ (talk) 11:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Currying != Generalized Partial Application
As noted in

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2266

and

http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-26/mail-archive/msg00000.html

Currying != Generalized Partial Application

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

 * As the article's history shows, many people confuse the two. I was one of them until I read your links. Before that, I thought you were all being terribly pedantic.

 * However, in many cases (for programming, at least), the two are trivially equivalent. Thus, the term will likely continue to be generally "misused". Perhaps it would be best to create an entry for "partial application", and add a link to the top of the currying page along the lines of "In computer programming, currying is often generalized to mean 'partial application'"?
 * --manifolds 10:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

--- This section should be removed entirely. It is based on the ranting of two non-authoritative sources and doesn't express anything meaningful. Was very tempted to wholesale just delete this section lacking the energy to re-write it into something of any potential educational value. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.61.151.97 (talk) 23:19, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Structure missing
"When viewed in a set-theoretic light, currying becomes the theorem that the set of functions from  to A, and the set (AB)C of functions from C to the set of functions from B to A, are isomorphic."

This sentence means nothing. Two structures are isomorphic but not two sets. So the structure here is missing. -- fl

 * I noticed this as well. I fixed it so it's not as confusing, but I'm still not positive the idea is properly conveyed. Wgunther (talk) 22:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Missing Link
Reference 1, the reference to the mysterious Schönfinkel, seems to lead nowhere.

Also, this article says that Curry "re-invented" the concept, presumably independently, whereas the article on Schönfinkel says "While Curry attributed the concept to Schönfinkel, it had already been used by Frege." Which is it? Mhkay (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Programming language in Motivation section
I've just semi-rewritten the Motivation section for WP:STYLE. The code examples look a bit off to me, but I don't recognize the language so I could be wrong (and if I'm not, I wouldn't know what to change it to). Specifically, why does this language have seemingly random rules for parenthesis placement around function arguments? --Scgtrp (talk) 04:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

 * I'm also curious what language this is. I'm going guess it's pseudocode because of how simple the function assignment is. It's not even that simple in symbolic math languages, like Mathematica. If you're going to make it pseudocode, you should probably just write it in lambda expressions which will probably be easier to read. It would be nice to see an example in some real programming language since this is otherwise a very theoretical article, but I feel like the language should be Haskell, Scheme, ML, or LISP since those are the more popular functional languages. Maybe I'm just delusional and it's a real language? Wgunther (talk) 22:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It was pretty much Haskell, with some superfluous or even wrong pairs of parentheses. I've now reinstated a correct version of the code. --Daniel5Ko (talk) 16:31, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Also invented by Gottlob Frege?
According to the German Wikipedia, Currying was also invented by Gottlob Frege. Does anybody have further information? 79.230.171.86 (talk) 09:02, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Always possible?
Is it (provably) true that any function can be curried? For example, I'd expect that y = f(a,b) =  ((a+b) / (a*b))  could not be curried. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.171.29 (talk) 23:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

 * Yes, at least in cases where the functions are not too limited. If I'm not mistaken, taking "function" to mean "morphism in a cartesian closed category" is exactly what is needed. In these cases, the difference is (or can be thought of) almost only in the syntax of function definitions. E.g. the curried version of your f might be specified by $$f(a)(b) = (a+b)/(a\cdot b)$$. See also  and   in Haskell's standard library, which are inverses of each other. --Daniel5Ko (talk) 23:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

 * Yes, any function that would be normally encountered by non-mathematicians can be curried. However, there are monoidal categories which are not closed, e.g. the comma category, e.g. the category of pointed spaces. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The Java example has a syntax error
The eclipse compiler gives me: Type mismatch: cannot convert from new CurryingTest.Compute{} to CurryingTest.Compute,Integer>,Integer>

Would you guys correct the example? Otherwise I'd prefer to delete it. Thx. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BostX (talk • contribs) 10:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Confusing notation
I already know what currying is, and I *still* had trouble figuring out what the notation in our examples is supposed to mean.

"g 2 = \y -> f(2,y)"

It's in no way obvious what the "\y" and "->" symbols mean. Could someone more familiar with this idiom add an explanation of, or a link to an explanation of, these terms?

 * That's Haskell notation: the  represents a λ (lambda abstraction).
 * I reworded the sentence before it to "Expressed in Haskell code, [...]", which hopefully makes the example clearer. --Piet Delport (talk) 04:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

 * I translated the Haskell to mathematical notation and added some explanation; hopefully, it's clearer now. ehird (talk) 18:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Motivation example
In the example in the motivation example, the function g seems to be defined in two different ways. Near the top, it is defined as $$\scriptstyle g(y) = f(x, y) = 3 / 2$$. Then later it is defined as $$\scriptstyle g(x): y \mapsto f(2, y)$$. So in the first case $$\scriptstyle g$$ is a function of the variable $$\scriptstyle y$$ that returns a value, and in the second case it is a function of the variable $$\scriptstyle x$$ that returns a function. I think. I could be wrong, but either way it would be nice if more clarification was provided as to why these seem to be different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richierocks (talk • contribs) 08:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I fixed this example yesterday. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 17:39, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Mention of motivation missing in Motivation section
It's great that this article has a "motivation" section. More articles should have such a section. Very few Wikipedia articles take the trouble to discuss why a thing was created, and without that context it can often be impossible for the reader to comprehend what the thing is, since the raw factual information about the thing's structure is meaningless if you don't know what the thing is for.

 * Ha! exactly what I have just written.   I should have read this first.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.182.249.22 (talk) 11:57, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I see that at some point in this article's history it contained a line that began "The practical motivation for currying is ...", but no language of that form is currently present in the Motivation section, and the motivation section in fact has devolved to the point where it just contains blank factual information about the technical aspects of currying, and no discussion whatsoever about the likely human purposes for organising functions in this way.

I'd fix this myself, if I knew what currying was. Having read the article, I find that I still don't. 81.131.48.185 (talk) 15:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * My mistake, the line about practical motivation is still present. For some reason it is the last line in the article (I admit I gave up before I got that far). I'm moving it to the motivation section. Could do with a little elaboration, I think. 81.131.48.185 (talk) 15:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Wait, no, the line in its present incarnation is about "partial application". I'd better leave it where it is. So my point stands. 81.131.48.185 (talk) 15:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The section name is probably not the best. It's mostly an illustrative example rather than the motivation for the concept. As it is, I don't think the example is bad; I do think it illustrates the idea of Currying. It could be improved, however. Also, there's a big fuss made the article about the difference between Currying and partial application which more than likely detracts from a layperson's understanding. The fuss is mostly isolated, but the fact it spills over to a motivating example is not really necessary.  Wgunther (talk) 18:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Consider writing a section which describes the motivation for the concept, please. 213.122.8.41 (talk) 00:49, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Clueless
I have read this article, and I have no clue *why* currying is performed.

It's like never having seen a triangle and reading a detailed explanation of Pythagoras' theorem, without any explanation that it allows you to compute the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle.

JavaScript Example
If I understand the first example on the page correctly, it corresponds to the following JavaScript:

XWolfRH (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Source for "coined by Christopher Strachey in 1967"
I cannot find the word "Currying" in Strachey's 1967 paper. Where is the information source that he coined the term? (Sorry if I'm not following any convention in Wikipedia - I'm not used to editing it and don't have much time to search.) Esumii (talk) 02:47, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

 * Yeah, Strachey's Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages only says:
 * "'There is a device originated by Schönfinkel, for reducing operators with several operands to the successive application of single operand operators.'"
 * The earliest usage of the term that I know of is in Reynolds' "Definitional Interpreters for Higher-Order Programming Languages" (1972):
 * "'In the last line we have used a trick called Currying (after the logician H. Curry) to solve the problem of introducing a binary operation into a language where all functions must accept a single argument. (The referee comments that although 'Currying' is tastier, 'Schönfinkeling” might be more accurate.)'"
 * Although it's not entirely clear from that passage if Reynolds coined the term there, or if it was already in use at the time. If the term "currying" was already in use five years before Reynolds' paper, I'd probably have expected Strachey to call it by that name. Or perhaps the term just didn't cross the Atlantic yet?
 * I'd thus either remove that sentence from the article, or replace it with a reference to Reynolds' paper.
 * —Ruud 08:26, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I found a forum post by David Turner (one of Strachey's students), who says Strachey invented it and it's in the 1967 lecture notes. But of course it's not, so there's some miscommunication. My current hypothesis is that it was coined at the Summer School but not written in the lecture notes. Of course this could be wrong, but it seems to fit the evidence. I've edited the article to reflect this. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 19:51, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Major expansion/re-write
I just concluded a major expansion of the math section, and a re-write of the introductory section, that I hope addresses many of the issues and questions in the talk page up above. I tried hard to be very clear in the motivational example, showing all the work and the details, perhaps being a bit repetitive; but I think that's OK. I also tried to carefully define all of the various notations and symbols used. It could probably be tightened up just a bit more, but I'm starting to go cross-eyed, so can't quite spot these. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 21:40, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

 * Thanks! —Ruud 21:46, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Function spaces Hom
It is said in the article that "One writes Hom(X,Y) for the set of all functions from X to Y, and uses the notation Y^X to denote the subset of continuous functions". However isn't this the other way around? Assuming the category in which Hom is defined is the category of topological spaces Top, Hom(X,Y) denotes the continuous functions from X to Y and Y^X all possible functions from X to Y. 86.115.221.210 (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Currying