On 7/26/2010 3:40 PM, Nicholas Piël wrote:
> I personally think that the naming of upstream/downstream is perfect for this
> unidirectional pattern. I use the 'wild water' or 'waterfall' metaphor where
> you can send something downstream but it is impossible to send something
> upstream (unless your a Trout).
I get that :) The problem is arises depending what level or end of the
system you are looking at.
For example - some people think of the connection pair in terms of
recipient. In this case, the recipient is a ZMQ_UPSTREAM.
For some people, it's a reversed perspective to what you have to take
with REQ/REP, the local socket type is named based on your role. With
DOWN/UP the local socket type is named on the destination.
It makes sense at first, in both cases, the local socket name is sensible;
msg->ZMQ_REQ ... "I am sending a request".
msg->ZMQ_DOWNSTREAM ... "I am sending data downstream"
But on the remote end the down/up becomes ambiguous.
ZMQ_UPSTREAM->recv ... Wait ... I'm receiving this from upstream?
Just to emphasize the point: There are some disciplines in which
"upstream" is the place that you send things, because things flow
downstream of their own accord. Salmon only ever worry about swimming
upstream. You would then wonder why you were writing data "downstream"
(since that's what the socket is named).
ZMQ_SENDPLINE and ZMQ_RECVPLINE would work. PipeLINE pattern, sending
endpoint, recving endpoint. (ZMQ_SENDPIPE people might go "but I want
tcp not a pipe" ;))
Although I think REQ/REP suffer far less from the language barrier than
UP/DOWN, you could avoid orientation issues (why am I not receiving on a
REQ socket?) by aliasing them
ZMQ_SENDRECV and ZMQ_RECVSEND. The pattern again being clearly
documented in the name. Down side: New users are going to mistake these
for PAIR, so
ZMQ_SENDTORECV and ZMQ_RECVTOSEND. Not as pretty as REQ and REP... But
disambiguation never hurt :) (Well, unless you are disambiguating to
your best friend that it was /his/ sister you had a date with last
night, but that is hardly a fair argument! :)
ZMQ_PUB and ZMQ_SUB work fine because they are descriptive rather than
directional.
_______________________________________________
zeromq-dev mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.zeromq.org/mailman/listinfo/zeromq-dev
