Re: Vocabulary matter: Component vs Element vs Item

["Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>]

Le Fri, 26 Jul 2013 09:59:46 +0200, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> a  
écrit:
> I don't think anyone should take the design choices made in the BCs in
> 1998 as being in any way definitive. I didn't choose Item/Elem, and I
> suspect that a lot more effort went into Ada.Containers naming
> conventions (they were at least reviewed by the ARG!).
>
> And the BCs are definitely in maintenance now!

Don't worry for that, I know ;)

There is another common use of Item, which is with menus. Since very long,  
“Menu item” is used constantly for menu entries. This one contradicts or  
not? I feel it do, as according to the previous ideas, it should be named  
Menu Element. Just stay with and favour Ada's wording if others  
contradicts with it's own wording.

Le Fri, 26 Jul 2013 19:24:55 +0200, Charles H. Sampson  
<csampson@inetworld.net> a écrit:
>      As a result, I don't feel competent to comment on any technical
> issues here, even from a historical perspective. However, I don't see
> that "component", "element" and "item" are at all related in plain
> English. I suspect that if you asked any reasonably literate person,
> excluding computer geeks but not scientists, to distinguish between
> these words, the likely response would be, Huh?"

Sorry, not my native tong. So I just checked Merriam Webster, and  
extracted the parts looking the most relevant for the topic…

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/element
2. a constituent part
2-C. a distinct group within a larger group or community
2-F. a distinct part of a composite device

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/item
1. a distinct part in an enumeration, account, or series : article
4. a separate piece of news or information

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/component
1. a constituent part : ingredient
2-A. any one of the vector terms added to form a vector sum or resultant
2-B. a coordinate of a vector; also : either member of an ordered pair of  
numbers

2-F of Element seems to suggest it may be a synonym of Component. But I  
believe many software design literature, including UML, prefers Component  
instead of Element for that.

Would be nice if there were some explanation somewhere, about how the RM  
choose to assign their signification to Item and Element. Whether the  
thing is named from the point of view of whom send or whom receive the  
thing, is probably important too. You hardly follow a convention if you  
don't understand it :-D


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University