[pypy-dev] Refining terminology

[Rodrigo Dias Arruda Senra]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2005 12:19:33 +0200
holger krekel <hpk at trillke.net> wrote:

> Hi folks, 
> 
> i have just started to write some documentation about PyPy's
> bytecode interpreter (only the overview chapter in fact see
> http://codespeak.net/pypy/index.cgi?doc/interpreter.html ).
> And i realized that i'd like to push to refine the terminology
> we are using throughout the PyPy documentation and our
> presentations. 

> # ... cut ...

> Well, maybe we should just go through the effort of
> creating a "glossary" containing the basic vocabulary
> we are using for describing what PyPy does and how
> it works.  And i think we should try to reuse common 
> VM/Compiler terminology, even refering to Wikipedia and 
> other public resources, to make it easier for non-Python/PyPy 
> crowds to understand what we are doing. 
> 
> I guess that some of you may think that it is only 
> real working code that matters (i know some do :-).  
> But i think this is not true. Communicating the concepts 
> is and has always been a major issue of the whole project. 
> 
> Any opinions or feedback (also from people just following
> the project's progress)? 

From the lurker POV this is indeed very important. Just to
give a real-life example, the computational reflection field
trudged slowly just because nobody had the same definition for
what a "meta-object" really meant.

I'm +1 for the creation of a pypy-abstraction glossary.
Even though tedious, I believe this task  must be an 
**inside-job** == performed by the core-dev team.

OTOH, validate such glossary is up-to-us neopypytes ;o)

best regards,
senra