Re: [XHR] SVG WG LC comments

On 13/06/2008, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:
>  Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> > On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:01:10 +0200, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc>
> wrote:
> > > > >  │ This is the Document pointer.
> > > > > If 'pointer' or 'Document pointer' is a term (which the styling
> seems to indicate) then please add it to section 2.2.
> > > >  The specification defines various terms throughout the specification.
> Only terms that didn't really fit anywhere else are in section 2.2.
> > > Still sounds like "Document" is the correct term here, rather than
> "Document pointer".
> > Still? What do you mean?
>  As in "I still think he has a point".
>
>  Using the term "pointer" seems bad since it's very C/C++ specific. I don't
> think it's used in neither Java or EcmaScript, where the term "reference" us
> more common. Additionally it is used very inconsistently throughout the
> spec.

The term reference in the ECMAScript terminology is wrong as well. A
Reference in ECMAScript is a tuple of an object and a property name,
which is evaluated through looking up the property on the given object
at the time of evaluation. References aren't even first class, they're
an implementation detail that I believe JScript is the only engine
that actually uses.

>  I would suggest using simply the term "Document" or "Document member"
> instead.

In ECMAScript, compound objects are a reference type (in the comp.
sci. meaning of "reference"), so in a C implementation a "Document"
ECMAScript type actually is a Document pointer internally. Or possibly
something with further indirection...



Anyway, my point is that there is no unambiguous term to use, so you
are probably better off making an arbitrary choice of using either the
terminology of the main target language (and I'm not sure which
language that is), or using comp. sci. terminology, and using the same
conventions throughout.
-- 
David "liorean" Andersson

Received on Friday, 13 June 2008 19:25:05 UTC