Subject: Re: Consistent terminology: cached/staged/index

From: Phil Hord <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:46:52 -0500

On 02/26/2011 04:09 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> I don't like the phrase "staging area". A "stage" already has an area.
> You put things on the stage. Sometimes there are multiple stages.

A "staging area" (idiomatically, perhaps) is a location where things are
collected to be organized before deployment.  Sounds a lot like our index.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staging_area

> If only a subset of the files are there, it's an 'index', if not, then
> I'd say it's a 'registry'. Anyway, it's something the user shouldn't
> care about.

When we pack up our kayak club for a trip, we stage equipment we're
bringing.  Eventually we make a decision about which equipment is going
and which is staying.  The decision is codified by the equipment we
leave in the staging area versus the equipment we remove to local
storage.  Everyone seems to understand the term when we use it in this
context.

I think the parade analogy is also pretty common.

I like "staging area(n)/stage(v)" better than "index" or "cache" because
of the connotation in English.  But if it doesn't translate well, the
search may need to go on.  Maybe we can fall back on stdc methods and
invent generic terms like strcpy.  How about "xnar"?

Phil