Re: [Monotone-devel] A better name for "context"

[Magnus Therning]

What about docket??

 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=docket

/M

On Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 01:51:21AM -0700, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
>The "context" support Graydon's working on is really cool.  But the
>name kind of sucks.  "Context" is vague, and wishy-washy, and
>ambiguous, and it's such a core entity that we really should do
>better.
>
>Ideally we should have a name that's short, and concrete, and rolls
>off the tongue -- one that is clear and unambiguous.  A little bit
>quirky is okay; if it's quirky then it will become a name, not just a
>description, and a name's what we want in order to make the concept
>concrete in people's heads.
>
>Just to remind people -- the thing we're trying to find a name for is
>what's previously been called a "context".  This is a new database
>entity, different from the ones that currently exist in monotone; it
>encapsulates both a manifest its ancestry information in one object.
>Internally there will still be manifests, but from the user's point of
>view, "contexts" will replace manifests; everywhere you put in a
>manifest id today you will put in a "context" id tomorrow.
>
>There's been some brainstorming on IRC for a good name for this.  I'll
>list some of the ones I liked from that, and then people can make
>their own suggestions and argue about which is best...
>
>- "version", "revision"
>
>  This is traditional (it's what, e.g., CVS and Subversion call the
>  analogous thing, I guess Arch too), but I don't like it, because if
>  I say "what version/revision are you using?", you can't tell whether
>  I mean the VCS version or the software release version.  (This has
>  presumably been less of a problem in the past, since VCS versions
>  have traditionally been pretty useless to ask about...)
>
>- "treestate"
>
>  Kinda ambiguous with "manifest", maybe, dunno.
>
>- "node"
>
>  A very generic term (there are _lots_ of things that get called
>  nodes), but nice and monosyllabic and concrete.
>
>- "stratum", "sherd"
>
>  I kind of like the archeology metaphor; we already talk about
>  software "artifacts" and "digging through old changes"; why not
>  steal some more words?  ("stratum" refers to a layer of dirt; as you
>  dig down through the earth, each stratum corresponds to a particular
>  period of time.  "sherd" means a piece of broken pottery, one of the
>  most common artifacts found while doing said digging.  It might be
>  bad to imply the corresponding software is broken, but then, all
>  software but TeX _is_ broken, so... :-))
>
>- "situation"
>- "island"
>
>  No real comments on these.  Kinda like them.
>
>-- Nathaniel
>
>-- 
>"On arrival in my ward I was immediately served with lunch. `This is
>what you ordered yesterday.' I pointed out that I had just arrived,
>only to be told: `This is what your bed ordered.'"
>  -- Letter to the Editor, The Times, September 2000
>
>
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-- 
Magnus Therning                    (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
address@hidden
http://magnus.therning.org/

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