[zeromq-dev] [otish] "Why ZeroMQ"

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 5:04 PM, Brian Granger <ellisonbg at gmail.com> wrote:

> I also don't think we should mess with the other names.  The only names I
> find to be confusing are the UPSTREAM/DOWNSTREAM.  All the other names fit
> the pattern MAtrix described of "I am a PUBlisher, I am a REPlier, etc."  My
> feeling is that because of the flexibility of 0MQ sockets, ANY naming scheme
> will be a leaky abstraction.  Thus, as long as they are decent, we shouldn't
> mess with them.  To really understand each socket type, you really have to
> learn more about how they work from the docs.

What you say seems accurate.  It might be that renaming
upstream/downstream solves the problem.  Certainly it looks like each
pattern needs its own abstraction.  Oliver's suggestion of long
aliases would make life easier for those explaining 0MQ to beginners.
The zmq_socket man page is careful to define meaningful node names for
each pattern.  They make nice socket type names except for the
pipeline pattern.

I've summarized this on: http://www.zeromq.org/draft:socket-type-names

-Pieter