snap.yaml skill->interface change

[Gustavo Niemeyer]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 6:02 PM, Mark Shuttleworth <mark at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> It's not a small change in direction, it's 180 degrees :)
>

Well, kind of.. visually, yes, but conceptually the analogy is entirely
preserved.

I wonder if this is because some people think of the wall socket as the
> plug, and others think of the gadget-prong-thing as the plug. The latter
> are technically correct, I think, but using semantics that are not
> consistently understood doesn't help us grow consistent understanding.
> When we chose "plug" it's because we thought it would help people "get
> it", but it isn't doing that, and reversing the directionality won't help.
>

People do get it! That's exactly why they're reporting it's reversed, and
they are right.

The deal breaker happened today in a (3h!) security meeting, where I was
drawing pictures and got in trouble because I too instinctively drew it the
other way around.

Going deeper there was the realization that even when thinking about
networking we generally picture it in our minds as the provider of the
service being the entity that sits idle with an open port (socket? slot?)
waiting for an external entity to connect to it. The connecting "plug" is
the consumer, the client.

So let's please not give up these terms now. We found terminology people
can relate to, and the fact they were unhappy about the order is *good*. It
ringed bells.

I wonder if we should instead go to something else we explored, which is
> "tangs and slots". If you don't say "plug" it becomes much clearer that
> the slot is the receiver, and tang is a nice word in many ways.
>

I don't even know what a tang is. :-)


gustavo @ http://niemeyer.net
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