[Python-Dev] Terminology for PEP 343

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 03:41 PM 7/3/2005 -0400, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> > > There may be cases where the object being managed is not a resource
> > > per-se, but that doesn't mean that the mechanism is misnamed as a
> > > 'resource manager'; it's just the most common use case that any of
>us
> > > have managed to think of (as of yet).
>
>[Michael Hudson]
> > This is possible.  I just wanted to expand everyone's minds :)
>
>Stick by your guns.  The mechanism is more general than resource
>management.  Like decorators, the encapsulation of a try/finally wrapper
>is completely generic and not married to the resource management
>context.

Expand your mind.  :) "Resource" can include whatever objects you want it 
to -- or no objects at all.  A resource can be conceptual - like for 
example the user's attention, or the contents of a status bar or log 
message, or the timing/profiling of an activity.  I think maybe you're 
projecting one particular concept of "resource management" 
(acquisition/release) and therefore say it's too narrow.  But that's like 
I'm saying "vehicle", and you think that means "car".

Should we give mind-expanding examples of "resource"?  Yes, sure.  But it's 
easier to say and teach "resource management" first, and then expand the 
concept, than to start with some more nebulous concept and then say, "but 
mostly you're going to use it to manage resources of various kinds."  :)

If you did want to start with something vague, you could always call it 
"context management", and call the objects "context listeners", saying that 
the "with" statement defines a context in which its body occurs, and the 
context listener is notified of the context's entry and exit.  But I don't 
think that this really works as the primary explanation; I think it's 
better as a mind-expanding "Another way to think of this is..." add-on to 
the simple resource management explanation.