[Python-Dev] PEP 492: async/await in Python; version 4

[Guido van Rossum]

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Gustavo Carneiro <gjcarneiro at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
>
> On 1 May 2015 at 16:31, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 5:50 AM, Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yury Selivanov schrieb am 30.04.2015 um 03:30:
>>> > 1. Terminology:
>>> > - *native coroutine* term is used for "async def" functions.
>>>
>>> When I read "native", I think of native (binary) code. So "native
>>> coroutine" sounds like it's implemented in some compiled low-level
>>> language. That might be the case (certainly in the CPython world), but
>>> it's
>>> not related to this PEP nor its set of examples.
>>>
>>>
>>> > We should discuss how we will name new 'async def' coroutines in
>>> > Python Documentation if the PEP is accepted.
>>>
>>> Well, it doesn't hurt to avoid obvious misleading terminology upfront.
>>>
>>
>> I think "obvious[ly] misleading" is too strong, nobody is trying to
>> mislead anybody, we just have different associations with the same word.
>> Given the feedback I'd call "native coroutine" suboptimal (even though I
>> proposed it myself) and I am now in favor of using "async function".
>>
>
> But what if you have async methods?  I know, a method is almost a
> function, but still, sounds slightly confusing.
>
> IMHO, these are really classical coroutines.  If gevent calls them
> coroutines, I don't think asyncio has any less right to call them
> coroutines.
>
> You have to ask yourself this: a new programmer, when he sees mentions of
> coroutines, how likely is he to understand what he is dealing with?  What
> about "async function"?  The former is a well known concept, since decades
> ago, while the latter is something he probably (at least me) never heard of
> before.
>
> For me, an async function is just as likely to be an API that is
> asynchronous in the sense that it takes an extra "callback" parameter to be
> called when the asynchronous work is done.
>
> I think coroutine is the name of a concept, not a specific implementation.
>
> Cheers,
>
>  Cheers indeed! I agree that the *concept* is best called coroutine -- and
we have used this term ever since PEP 342. But when we're talking specifics
and trying to distinguish e.g. a function declared with 'async def' from a
regular function or from a regular generator function, using 'async
function' sounds right. And 'async method' if it's a method.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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