Re: [PROPOSAL] New terminology

[Christopher Lenz]

Vincent Massol wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Lenz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Vincent Massol wrote:

I have been thinking about my "Spines" proposal and as Chris said,

it

was a bit too spiky! :-)

I've found this nice picture: http://ckart.com/rich/cactmorph.jpg

Which has given me the following idea:

* Our cactus framework = Pistil
* Our cactus front ends, i.e. what goes around the framework =

Petals

Thus, I would like to propose to name "Petal" our front-ends: Ant,
Eclipse, Maven, etc.

Comments?

Well, this doesn't address my concern about having a name that needs

to

be explained before it's understood :-P ...

Same as Cactus vs J2EEUnit ... :-)

Well, project names are different IMO... here we're trying to put a label on a collection of related modules.

I'd still favor a simple
'integration' directory, and generally just talking about
Cactus/Ant-Integration, Cactus/Eclipse-Integration, etc.

I also don't really like the sound of the names 'Ant Petal', 'Eclipse
Petal', etc... In retrospect, I'd even favor the original term
'Front-End' :-)

I guess I'm -0 (if I understand correctly, I'm not totally positive
about the proposal, but won't block it).

Still a nice picture though :-)

ouch. I was so happy with the name. Julien also likes it. Let me try to
convince one last time... :-) I especially like it for 3 reasons:

Hey, you don't need to convince me. If you and Julien like the name, and as long as we don't rename documentation to 'Areole' or 'Bud', I'm okay ;-)

1/ It isn't really hard to explain. Actually, the idea is to present a
diagram such as the one attached on the cactus web site front page (it's
a first draft and can be improved a lot). The idea is to have a
representation of http://ckart.com/rich/cactmorph.jpg

Okay.

2/ because it is unambiguous. Front-ends/integration/tools/etc are
English words and means different things for different persons. "Petal"
has to be defined, yes, but then we can easily talk about "Petals" in
emails, chat, articles, etc. and we all know what it means.

>

3/ I think it helps giving an identity/cohesion to Cactus. We are in
effect building a Cactus world.

Hmm, that's what I don't really like. I prefer labelling/describing things in as-familiar-and-simple-as-possible terms. What if the Ant team decided to call targets 'hills' instead (in lack of a better analogy)?

Introducing a new language/terminology has the side effect of raising the barrier to entry.

4/ It is easy to imagine petals around the core (Pistil) and the
attached diagram does really represent a core with petals attached to
it.

[Slightly OT]: If you really think further Petals are what really
protects the Pistil and could represent the core Cactus front-ends.
Sepals are further outside on the plant and could represent external
integrations (such as JUnitEE, StrutsTestCase, JBuilder, TogetherCC,
etc). Ok, my imagination is going wild here! :-)

[I actually thought 'petal' refers to the whole flowerish "thing" on the Cactus... well]

I see where you're heading, but I'm concerned that we're building a terminological system on a metaphor that basically comes from a fairly arbritrary project name (Cactus). I think using the metaphor would be nice for an overview on the front page, but trying to apply the derived terms to the entire project will be too much.

Ugh, hope that last paragraph was somehow understandable ;-)
Let me try to simplify: For example, using 'Pistil' instead of just 'Framework' would be taking the metaphor too far. Explaining the role of the framework by comparing it to a pistil would be okay. All IMHO of course.

--
Christopher Lenz
/=/ cmlenz at gmx.de


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