[Python-Dev] Comments of the PEP 3151

[Nick Coghlan]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 4:44 AM, Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> Glenn Linderman wrote:
>>
>>  On 7/25/2011 3:43 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>> Ok, let's call it InterruptError then. InterruptedError sounds like the
>>> error was interrupted ;)
>>>
>>
>> Sorry, no.  "InterruptError" sounds too much like a CPU interrupt signal,
>> which the error is not.
>
> It does, a bit -- but is that something we need to worry about at the Python
> level?  Seems to me we should have the names make sense for Python, and not
> worry about what assembly, C, Pascal, Perl, or <insert language X here>
> names might mean for them.

Like Glenn, I believe "InterruptError" sounds wrong - the event being
reported is that a system call was interrupted for some unknown
reason, not necessarily that the process received an interrupt.
'Interrupt' in computer science requires context to distinguish
between the verb and noun forms, and an exception name doesn't provide
that context. 'Interrupted' forces interpretation as the past tense of
the verb form, which is the meaning we want. If the subject of the
verb feels too ambiguous then I'd prefer to switch to the explicit
adjective form 'InterruptedCallError' rather than allowing the
verb/noun ambiguity.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia