terminology

[Mark Little <mcl@arjuna.com>]

Last night we discussed some terminology again, and (amongst the 3 of us who were there) seemed to reach some agreement. I said I'd email the results of the discussion:

 

(i) there definitely seems to be a need for a terminator actor as well as an initiator. In many cases the initiator and terminator may well be colocated, but that need not be the case (e.g., I begin a BT, but pass control of it to someone else to determine whether it should commit or rollback in my absence).

 

(ii) the idea of a conductor instead of coordinator was discussed. The conductor term isn't used in this domain as far as we can see, and may help to remove some confusion, especially if people use an ACID transaction system in collaboration with the BTP.

 

(iii) rather than distinguish between a participant who is a subordinate conductor, we should probably just say that that's an implementation choice for the participant, i.e., as far as the conductor is concerned it sends a prepare message, and what the recipient participant does to come up with the return value is up to it.

 

(iv) cohesion sounded OK to those involved, though I think Keith was going to see if he could come up with something else.

 

(v) atomic group is overloaded terminology too, tending to imply group communication using, say, atomic multicast or virtual synchrony. Atomic unit?

 

Mark.

 

----------------------------------------------
Dr. Mark Little (mark@arjuna.com)
Transactions Architect, HP Arjuna Labs
Phone +44 191 2064538
Fax   +44 191 2064203