I have nothing invested in the new name, but I think the current discussion
is off-track...


Henrik Sperre Johansen wrote
> No, its purpose is to *hold* a *value* in a single place

That's the purpose of a regular variable. Nothing is gained storage-wise


Henrik Sperre Johansen wrote
> through which multiple users can access it.

This also has nothing to do with access. If you have access to the wrapper,
you could have access to the underlying value


Henrik Sperre Johansen wrote
> It *is* by no means a *variable*, nor does it *react* to anything in and
> of itself.

My argument with ValueHolder is that it doesn't give a clue as to the only
added value it provides over a regular variable, which is change
notification. You mentioned that you could poll, but then why not just poll
an accessor to a regular variable? Then, when I googled it, I found on
wikipedia that "value holder" is already in use in computer science
regarding lazy initialization… So that was out.

You're relating to these names as if we are inventing something new.
ReactiveVariable came as a result of googling to see if there is a computer
science term that applies to what we're actually doing. Reactive variables
from FRP seemed close.

So I think this is where we're at:
- Ben already changed it on the Spec side, which is why I objected to "I
don't like it". To ask him to go through the work to change it again, there
should be qualitative benefit. If we do find a valid argument,
MonitoredValue seems closest so far to revealing the intention, but even
that is thin. It can be monitored, but doesn't have to be. It's more like
MonitorableValue (pseudo-English, not an actual suggestion).
- "reactive variable" seems to be an existing term, so let's not argue as to
whether we think the world should change the term, but only if the way it's
already used accurately describes our situation here.



-----
Cheers,
Sean
--
View this message in context: 
http://forum.world.st/Issues-12717-and-12684-tp4739761p4740370.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Developers mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Reply via email to