[Zope3-dev] Tabling the name game?

[Phillip J. Eby]

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.