domenic at domenicdenicola.com (2013-12-24T23:54:23.247Z)
On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Oliver Hunt <oliver at apple.com> wrote: > The problem i have with SideTable as a name is that it’s implying a very > specific use case (one that could equally be served by private names), it’s > also not an obvious name to developers who are not aware of terms of art. > > I said a long time ago that the name WeakMap did not match the expected > semantics of other languages, nor what was expected by developers but we > couldn’t think of a good alternative name, and (i thought) decided that > sticking with WeakMap was the best of the bad options. > Several of us, including myself, have been repeatedly surprised at how much confusion the term "WeakMap" has caused. SideTable may or may not be a bit better, but it doesn't matter. Given existing practice and the lack of a compelling need to rename, it is too late. On Dec 16, 2013, at 1:09 PM, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen at wirfs-brock.com> wrote: > That is what was so attractive about changing the name. Allen, SideTable actually perpetuates most of the confusion caused by the term "WeakMap", though not all. SideTable still encourages one to think as-if the mutable storage is in the map/table, rather than being hung off the key objects. That's why it is only a bit better. The "Relationship" term you mentioned that led to http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:relationships is still the only term that suggests the right way to think about this, but would be terrible as the name of the abstraction.
On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Oliver Hunt <oliver at apple.com> wrote: > The problem i have with SideTable as a name is that it’s implying a very > specific use case (one that could equally be served by private names), it’s > also not an obvious name to developers who are not aware of terms of art. > > I said a long time ago that the name WeakMap did not match the expected > semantics of other languages, nor what was expected by developers but we > couldn’t think of a good alternative name, and (i thought) decided that > sticking with WeakMap was the best of the bad options. > Several of us, including myself, have been repeatedly surprised at how much confusion the term "WeakMap" has caused. SideTable may or may not be a bit better, but it doesn't matter. Given existing practice and the lack of a compelling need to rename, it is too late. > > —Oliver > > On Dec 16, 2013, at 1:09 PM, Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen at wirfs-brock.com> > wrote: > > > > > On Dec 16, 2013, at 9:34 AM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote: > > ... > >> > >> (The name "SideTable" makes me think I seriously need to re-evaluate > >> what `WeakMap` is supposed to be.) > > > > That is what was so attractive about changing the name. > Allen, SideTable actually perpetuates most of the confusion caused by the term "WeakMap", though not all. SideTable still encourages one to think as-if the mutable storage is in the map/table, rather than being hung off the key objects. That's why it is only a bit better. The "Relationship" term you mentioned that led to < http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=strawman:relationships> is still the only term that suggests the right way to think about this, but would be terrible as the name of the abstraction. > > > > Allen > > _______________________________________________ > > es-discuss mailing list > > es-discuss at mozilla.org > > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > es-discuss mailing list > es-discuss at mozilla.org > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss > -- Cheers, --MarkM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es-discuss/attachments/20131216/2d68db18/attachment-0001.html>