[Zope3-dev] Need help with jargon

[Jim Fulton]

Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> At 12:23 PM 4/1/04 -0500, Jim Fulton wrote:
> 
>> Phillip J. Eby wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> How about "utility"?
>>
>>
>> We're already using the word "Utility".  A utility is a stand-alone
>> object. It doesn't adapt something else.
> 
> 
> And how, pray tell, is that different from *adapting ZERO objects*????   
> That seems pretty darn standalone to me.  :)

Except that when we adapt 0 objects, we *still* create a new object.
This is to be consistent with the case of adapting one or more objects.
It also provides a way of registering factories by the kinds of things
they create.

> 
>>> Although utilities have historically been looked up via just an 
>>> interface, one could consider the historic definition as the special 
>>> case of no parameters and the empty name.
>>> Perhaps the new jargon would be that utilities may now be "named" and 
>>> "parameterized".  The name and parameters are provided to the 
>>> utility's factory.
>>
>>
>> Maaaaybe.
>>
>> I'll note that another name for these might be "multimethods". :)
> 
> 
> Very true.  You could simply have one multimethod per name + interface 
> pair.
> 
> Though, now that I've read the API-simplification thread, I wonder why 
> you don't just go for "presenter" in the first place, if that's all 
> these things are used for.

But that's not all they are used for.  Presenters are the most common
application, but we have other uses for these things.

Presenters are also a bit different because they can be skinned.
That is, when we look up a presentation component, we look it up
in a skin, which then searches a number os layers, for the component.

> 
>> But I was thinking of adjectives for "adapter".
> 
> 
> I find it hard to conceptualize adapting from nothing to something.  :)

That's an edge case, but, point taken.

Jim

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