[Zope3-dev] Tabling the name game?
Phillip J. Eby
pje@telecommunity.com
Sun, 09 Dec 2001 22:20:54 -0500
At 01:27 PM 12/9/01 -0500, Ken Manheimer wrote:
>On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Shane Hathaway wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
>
> > > Honestly, from what you've described, it sounds to me like the names are
> > > backwards, because to me a Service would be something you'd want to
> have a
> > > lot of, with relatively few Utilities (based on the names
> alone). Also, if
>
>I think the confusion here stems from
>
> - utility as in "public utility" - gas, water, electric
>
>versus
>
> - "utility knife" - handy, heavy-duty utensil
>
>I'm pretty sure the current zope3 usage intends the latter, while i
>suspect phillip is assuming the former.
>
>Hey - how about "utensil"!?
>
>It's very similar to the intended use of "utility", and doesn't have any
>grand categorical connotation (i've never heard of a "public utensil":-).
Hrm. So far I haven't heard any reason *why* these distinctions even
exist. The service vs. utility dichotomy seems kind of weird to
me.... like dividing components into ones with pink polka dots versus ones
with purple stripes. What if I want one with purple polka dots? Do we
need words for ones with pink dots and purple stripes, but no words for
ones with purple dots? And if so, how precise should these words
be? Should pink stars or triangles be considered similar enough to polka
dots to be considered the same thing? Argh!
In other words, the names talked about so far do not seem to completely
cover nor clearly divide the conceptual space of "component". They seem
like attempts to draw fine distinctions between things that are already in
an (unnamed) subset of that space. (E.g., the unnamed space of "things
with colored patterns", in my metaphor above.)
Why don't we just start with "component" and work our way down from
there? Guido made some remarks about abstractions being difficult. I
think that is indeed the difficulty here. We are trying to classify things
by Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species when we
haven't actually seen any plants or animals yet. Perhaps we should just
call everything a component, and wait until some patterns start to emerge
before we start giving things names.
Since January when I first saw some Zope 3 tutorial prototypes, I've been
playing with component-oriented application patterns, and have seen three
"kingdom"-level distinctions emerge in my work; animal-vegetable-mineral as
it were. I posted these to the "DifferencesBetweenServicesAndUtilities"
page in the Wiki, but to be honest I think I'd be just as happy if we
simply blew off any finer-grained naming than "component" until more stuff
exists to visibly *do* with them.
Meanwhile, describing what particular components actually do or don't do
will probably be more helpful than trying to define broad categories of
components up front. It may lead to some repetition or redundant
descriptions initially, but it will *really* help those of us who are
struggling with the terminology right now. Which, I think, is nearly all
of us who haven't been living in contact with the NewReligion during its
conception and gestation.