[Python-Dev] PEP 246: let's reset

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 13:00 -0500, Phillip J. Eby wrote:

> """One type is the "extender", ...

> By contrast, an "independent adapter" ...

I really like the way this part of the PEP is sounding, since it really
captures two almost, but not quite, completely different use-cases, the
confusion between which generated all the discussion here in the first
place.  The terminology seems a bit cumbersome though.

I'd like to propose that an "extender" be called a "transformer", since
it provides a transformation for an underlying object - it changes the
shape of the underlying object so it will fit somewhere else, without
creating a new object.  Similarly, the cumbersome "independent adapter"
might be called a "converter", since it converts A into B, where B is
some new kind of thing.

Although the words are almost synonyms, their implications seem to match
up with what's trying to be communicated here.  A "transformer" is
generally used in the electrical sense - it is a device which changes
voltage, and only voltage.  It takes in one flavor of current and
produces one, and exactly one other.  Used in the electrical sense, a
"converter" is far more general, since it has no technical meaning that
I'm aware of - it might change anything about the current.  However,
other things are also called converters, such as currency converters,
which take one kind of currency and produce another, separate currency.
Similar to "independent adapters", this conversion is dependent on a
moment in time for the conversion - after the conversion, each currency
may gain or lose value relative to the other.

If nobody likes this idea, it would seem a bit more symmetric to have
"dependent" and "independent" adapters, rather than "extenders" and
"independent adapters".  As it is I'm left wondering what the concept of
dependency in an adapter is.