On Mar 15, 9:28 pm, Benjamin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mar 15, 7:29 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:> 'join' in the wrong word for > the method in class Thread. > > > The agent-patient semantics of calling functions can get ambiguous. > > It is not a problem of native Pythoners alone. Is it due to lazy > > programming, an inability of English (do you have it in other > > languages?), or not a problem at all? > > This is what Java uses, and Python's threading module tries to imitate > it.
If everybody's using join, then everybody's using join. That by itself doesn't constitute a case that the practice, the trend, is either right or wrong. Which is why I bring it up! Upon some second thoughts, the OP (myself) could use a few more examples... maybe even some parameters. Maybe even a spell checker (subject line). > th1.join() -> 'be joined by th1' > file1.close()-> 'close file1' > lock1.wait()-> 'getinlinefor lock1' One approach is to take a 'declarative' perspective: make them statements instead of commands. th1.join() -> th1.joins() file1.close() -> file1.closes() lock1.wait() -> lock1.becomesfree() htmlparser.reset() -> htmlparser.resets() htmlparser.feed( data ) -> htmlparser.eats( data ) pickle.dump( obj ) -> pickle.dumps( obj ) pickle.dumps( obj ) -> pickle.sdumps( obj ) socket.accept() -> socket.accepts() I tried once but got frustrated because the libraries wouldn't fit in. lock1.becomesfree() is a fine example. It's saying what happens in that statement, which is a lot closer to what's actually going on-- because lock is doing exactly nothing until something else in some other story line. thread1.joins() similarly. I do contend that names are hard to pick-- "one-worders" take perspective and distance, which are pricey pricey-- and unfortunately deadlines press and the existing ones come already to be used. Of course, Python version graduation is a fine time to make the change, but I'm no good at asking politely-- the right people at the right times and in the right ways. A tool might be able to convert the obvious cases automatically, and prompt the operator about any residue. He wouldn't necessarily even have to change overridden methods by hand either! Multi-control systems may have cause the rift. Without them, 'do it' is the same as 'it does it'. With them, 'he does it' and 'you do it' are different. However the popularity of object-orientation may be the culprit: not all of our instruction names made the jump right. Maybe both. Aside: The docs are heavily (-heavily-) in the patient (passive) voice too: code.interact: "is passed", "is then run", "is discarded", as well as alternate between declaration and command. But -you- rewrite them, Mr. Backseat Driver! A lot of abbreviations 'recv', 'del', 'dir', and 'stat' can go. I digress. The language would be changing pretty deeply: returns, yields, passes, dels, raises, breaks, continues, imports. The 'returns' would even move over: retval returns; object() returns; match returns (return retval, return object(), return match). Maybe there's a language out there that understands! The inconsistency is in the address of threads and synchro. objects: The author changes audiences. In th1.join(), he is not commanding his audience to join th1. Biggest problem. It's like an implicit 'the self thread' shows up from dreamworld or something. th1.join( this_thread ) lock1.waitfor( a_goahead ) lock1.waitfor( someone_else_to_finish_up ) I'm not holding that the functions aren't defined. I'm saying the names are hastily chosen. The join documentation doesn't use the word 'join'. Event.wait doesn't use wait, but Condition, os, and subprocess do. "Event.wait( [timeout]) Block until the internal flag is true. If the internal flag is true on entry, return immediately. Otherwise, block until another thread calls set() to set the flag to true, or until the optional timeout occurs. When the timeout argument is present and not None, it should be a floating point number specifying a timeout for the operation in seconds (or fractions thereof). " Aside: The rage-against-the-machine/paranoia/conspiracy-theory side of me tries to ascribe malice to the writers, saying "they" were "holding" "me" "down" (referring to my nose, of course). I know better, but college was rough and the girlfriend pulled, so I don't always catch it. Cough. My earlier use of 'lazy' may have been a bit pejorative. It insinuated the authors devoted time to Doritos over better names, rather than just other names or even bugs. I was in a different setting then -and- on autopilot. It proves my point, though. Time is scarce. Help me ask the right way! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
