Naming, Terminology and Understanding all the New Awesomeness that is Revolution

Quote from: doze at Oct 03, 2008, 12:17 PM

I like the resolver and validator also, and they seem a logical name for me, but I’m just the opposite of what this seems all to be about. What I don’t like is when something technical is trying to be named commonly, like if resolver would be named passenger. And keeping that in mind, I didn’t like the Transport and Vehicle names when I first heard them.

What I would like is that the Transport would be called Package and the Vehicle would be called Container.

Would Bundle work for what’s now a Vehicle? I am repeatedly hung up on a mental picture of cars, driving to work, vans and 18-wheelers every time ... I’m mentally deficient that way. I don’t have issue that when reviewing the previous discussion and substituting "Bundle" ... I do get it when using Vehicle after the detailed explanation (Thanks for that btw!), but it slows down my comprehension and I have to really make conscious, purposeful conceptual shifts from my first inclination of the traditional definition of "vehicle". I guess I’m in the Krug-camp of "Don’t Make Me Think".

Now granted Bundles might get confusing with Packages also in the mix, at least to me since the kinda-sorta mean the same thing in my simplified view of the world. Maybe Package could be simply called a Collection since that seems to be my understanding of what they are in the context of installing stuff into a Revo site?

BTW, I don’t have a problem with Validators and Resolvers, but I do actually think they might be easier to grok when associated with Bundles (at least when compared to Vehicles).

One other note for clarification, what would be the difference between a Dictionary and a Lexicon in light of how languages, field labels, etc. are handled in Revolution?

Update re: Foci/Focus I think there’s some movement towards calling them simply topics

Quote from: OpenGeek at Oct 03, 2008, 12:57 AM

We could call them Harvey Keitels or the Wolves, or maybe the "Cleaners", but I thought resolution was a more neutral approach. 

I like Harvey Keitel!

And reading all the posts here I feel that only an "Agent" is missing from this exciting movie-script (as the resolver?).

Quote from: smashingred at Oct 03, 2008, 12:41 PM

Transport is a packaged and zipped collection of resources that can be ported from one install to another.
Provisioner is a Transport Source Location/URI
Package is a packaged and zipped collection or resources that can be ported from one install to another.
Workspaces is a name assigned to the place where packages and provisioners are managed
Lexicon is a language assignment matrix analogous to a language definition file.
Foci (I haven’t figured out this term yet) My guess is that it is a language element classificiation.
Vehicles have something to do with transports; some sort of wrapper for pieces to make it work?
Resolver no clue at all what this does or why I even need to know what it does since I haven’t seen it yet.

Mind putting those here, and we can elaborate more on the correct definitions? (Although you got most of them right)

http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/revolution/Glossary+of+Terms

Quote from: rthrash at Oct 03, 2008, 01:12 PM

Would Bundle work for what’s now a Vehicle?

Yes, Bundle would be better also.. But why it can’t be named Container, because it is a container? But yeah.. anything technical term would be better from my view that Vehicle..

Quote from: vhollo at Oct 03, 2008, 02:48 PM

I like Harvey Keitel!

Thats funny, I had the same mental image of the resolver

The term ’container’ helps me understand the principle better. But would that not get confusing with container type documents? It is always complicated to have the same term used for different things. Vehicle makes sense and it will be unique throughout the system (no similar term is used anywhere else), may take a little to get used to it.

Bundle is interesting but I don’t like the word bundle, too much like package.

This discussion has been great to get a better understanding of the terminology.

I don’t think Bundle works as well as Vehicle. Let’s look at the definitions:

Bundle, n.
1. several objects or a quantity of material gathered or bound together.
2. an item, group, or quantity wrapped for carrying; package.

Vehicle, n.
1. Any means in or by which someone travels or something is carried or conveyed; a means of conveyance or transport

Okay, with that in mind, where does bundle fail as a definition? Well, first off, a Vehicle is not by any means a collection of objects - it’s a carrier for only one object, and in that carrier, there are things that can be performed (resolvers/validators). Resolvers and validators perform actions based on the object - they are not on par level with the object in terms of primacy.

Secondly, Bundle seems to imply more of the package definition - however, now you’re saying a Bundle is a package that is put in a package. That gets confusing. Separating the term bundle from package is necessary, since there can be multiple vehicles in a package.

Vehicle’s definition fits it perfectly - a vehicle in Revolution is simply a structure by which objects are carried and "conveyed" (where conveyance here means acted upon with resolvers/validators).

I still think Vehicle is the best term for this structure.

Quote from: dev_cw at Oct 03, 2008, 03:45 PM

Vehicle makes sense and it will be unique throughout the system (no similar term is used anywhere else), may take a little to get used to it.

Yes, but that is where I see the problem if some platform starts to come up with it’s own unique words that doesn’t mean anything to a developer when it first sees them.

Packages, containers and bundles are used commonly in most SW and developers know what they are. But if new developer comes to Revolution and sees Transports, Vehicles and Passengers used, they need to read somewhere that Transport means Packages, Vehicles means Containers etc.. Why? Why not just call them as what they are?

Quote from: doze at Oct 03, 2008, 04:04 PM

Packages, containers and bundles are used commonly in most SW and developers know what they are. But if new developer comes to Revolution and sees Transports, Vehicles and Passengers used, they need to read somewhere that Transport means Packages, Vehicles means Containers etc.. Why? Why not just call them as what they are?

Well, to Revo’s credit, Package = Transport = Transport Package. Same thing, some people here have been just abbreviating it.

The problem with using terms that other systems use is that those other systems use them that way because that’s how they perform. Our system in Revo allows for more flexibility and functionality than other systems - so using names that don’t reflect that is bad practice.

Container doesn’t work because it doesn’t imply action - which is what is happening when resolvers/validators occur. I’ve already explained why Bundle doesn’t work.

And I doubt developers would be too worried about taking 2 minutes to read the below Confluence post describing the terms. Developers are used to learning new languages and terms all the time.

http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/revolution/Glossary+of+Terms

Quote from: doze at Oct 03, 2008, 03:38 PM

Quote from: rthrash at Oct 03, 2008, 01:12 PM

Would Bundle work for what’s now a Vehicle?

Yes, Bundle would be better also.. But why it can’t be named Container, because it is a container? But yeah.. anything technical term would be better from my view that Vehicle..

I agree with Shaun, vehicles works for me. A vehicle represents a single object, for example a snippet or chunk, that needs to be installed. For me, bundle creates the thinking that there would be multiple objects in a vehicle but there wouldn’t be - if there were multiple snippets to be installed, you would need multiple vehicles.

To be quite honest, I’ve dabbled with a lot of these concepts as they’ve been introduced into Revolution and more recently with the package building concepts. I don’t find the terminology a roadblock, what I struggled with initially is understanding the relationships between the various elements - a diagram, like what smashingred mentioned a few posts ago, would really help people grasp the relationships I think.

As for Lexicon, I’m gonna be a bit selfish here I do think dictionary would help some developers immediately understand what the purpose of the lexicon is as it’s just a more common term. But then, in my little mind, it means more typing every time I want to include a language string in my code so just in terms of what would benefit in the long run, I’d stick with lexicon :p Foci, yeah, once I knew what it represented, I was happy with it - but something like ’topics’ might just stick with people, who may not be developers, but will be wanting to create multi-language translations for various addons.

I am thrilled with the shape of this thread. Things are coming out of the mud and its wonderful.

Shaun, I’ve posted the terms for flourishment into the wiki.

I’d like to echo the idea of dictionary over lexicon. and topics over focus. In most worlds dictionaries hold definitions for terms (yes lexicon is more accurate but less understandable (and lets remember it’ll likely be dictionary in other languages anyway.) We can enhance the meaning of topics by using the word focus within the context of defining topics. Focus and especially foci are not terms I use in that context, ever.

I’d also love to understand more about Workspaces I go there and I see the packages and provisioner stuff there but don’t understand the choice of workspaces to describe this.

Vehicle is not a winner yet. I’m working with the concept but until I get a clear understanding of its true function/process I’ll reserve judgement.

Keep up the discussion.

Cheers,

Jay