The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was nomination withdrawn. No other deletes other than nominator. The article has been improved, but needs more. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 04:13, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Service-orientation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Patent nonsense:

• Service-orientation is the philosophical process of processes becoming more service-oriented.

So tell me, class, what have we learned?

• a design paradigm that specifies the creation of automation logic in the form of services....
• Service-orientation has continued to receive increased recognition as an important part of the service-oriented computing landscape and a valid design approach to achieving service-oriented architecture....

This might be a notable idea. It seems to be some kind of "design paradigm" promoted by the high chiefs of Microsoft; the article quotes Don Box and Paul Allen. Still, the article leaves me wondering whether there's any actual subject to be described by the title. The attempts at defining the topic are vague lists of glittering generalities, which always creates the impression that someone is selling something, or at least attempting to promote a neologism devised for promotional purposes without real meaning. The article itself helpfully acknowledges that Due to the range of interpretations given to the notion of SOA, it is not always clear what is exactly being discussed. This would appear to be a vague buzzword without a topic to be about, and even Microsoft's buzzwords shouldn't get a free ride just for being from Microsoft.

I tagged this for multiple issues, essentially for being nonsensical and unreadable. "Let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." - David Hume

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.

- Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:19, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• keep, or merge into Service-oriented architecture. This article needs cleanup, not deletion. There's something going on under the multiple layers of buzzword abstraction, though it's not entirely clear. Looking at this version of the article, it's clear there's something going on, because there are multiple books about it, published by a real publisher (Prentice Hall). Argyriou (talk) 18:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Service-oriented architecture isn't exactly a model article yet, either, but it's far clearer than this. Both would appear to be about computing and the design of interfaces. I could live with a smerge and redirect, with perhaps the entire text now here moved to talk there. Odd that the Erl references were removed, but Erl and Microsoft would appear to be the main sources. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep We need this. Even if we delete this version (WHY?!) we'd only have to recreate it again tomorrow. This is currently a _huge_ topic in IT (and the real world, not just M$), almost universally misunderstood and there's a painful need for good explanatory articles on it. Nor is it the same thing as SOA, so merging is inappropriate. Orientation is the re-engineering of a business around service-based IT products, so as to make use of it. SOA is how to structure IT products to offer these services that you're going to need. Note incidentally that Paul Allen's book's title is "Service Orientation", not "SOA", if you're looking for credible sources for the term itself. Paul Allen incidentally is the one from CA, not the other one. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:38, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Orientation is the re-engineering of a business around the IT products, so as to make use of it. SOA is how to structure IT products to offer these services that you're going to need. I learned more from this statement than I did from any of the text in the article, for all its name dropping. It still seems to me like two sides of the same coin, though. Like I said, notability is not the issue, and if the article were intelligible enough to give an inkling about what the underlying subject was about, I'd try to restate what I thought it was saying more plainly. If it's a "huge topic" that nobody understands, and this is a representative attempt at an explanatory article, is there really a "topic" behind the hype? - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 03:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. Maybe I should try writing articles some time... This AfD is very like the one on Oracle Enterprise Service Bus: they're articles written in 2007 about a topic that is just about about gaining recognition, yet still not understanding, today in 2010. No wonder they're unclear - back when they were written, almost no-one understood what they were about. I've spent the last two years of my working life pretty much entirely trying to learn what they are, then communicate this to manglement (well-known IT company, still doesn't recognise the difference between web services and SOA).

If Wikipedia worked, it would be offering a good article here: clear, accessible, objective and free of vendor or platform bias. 'This is what we're here for. If we can't deliver on a topic this important, maybe it's time to give up and stick to just Pokemon? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: if this is an important subject, we ought to have an informative and intelligible article about it. This article is not that, not in its current form. It reminds me of Molière's medical professor who claimed that opium puts people to sleep because it has a "dormitive virtue". That powerful explanation is on the same level as Service-orientation has continued to receive increased recognition as an important part of the service-oriented computing landscape and a valid design approach to achieving service-oriented architecture.... and Service-orientation is the philosophical process of processes becoming more service-oriented. Text like this is not an appropriate response to the challenge of a blank page. If we could get a paragraph or two explaining what the subject is and why it is important, I'd be happy to withdraw this. Without that, I think we'd be better of with no article than with this article; a redlink is an invitation to write something, after all. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 22:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is this: Why should I spend my time writing a good article on a valuable topic when some teenage redacted is going to delete it 15 minutes later, just because they've never heard of it? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Think of that teenager as your target audience, and then you will know if you have succeeded at writing a good article. By all means, introduce technical detail; but begin by explaining, in plain and concrete words that your teenager will probably understand, what technical or historic significance the subject has, and why the topic is in fact important. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 05:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.