Subject: [core] observe #33 (new): s/Subscription/Observation

From: "core issue tracker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2010 09:15:10 -0000

#33: s/Subscription/Observation

 The current terminology used in the draft about Subscription is
 misleading, and seems to often confuse people to think that this is trying
 to achieve some pub/sub middleware framework (which it is not). Since
 observation/notification is the proper terminology, this ticket is to
 remove any references to "subscription" and replace them with
 "observation".

-- 
--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  zach@…              |       Owner:  hartke@…      
     Type:  enhancement         |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  minor               |   Milestone:                
Component:  observe             |     Version:                
 Severity:  -                   |    Keywords:                
--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------

Ticket URL: <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/core/trac/ticket/33>
core <http://tools.ietf.org/core/>

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From: "core issue tracker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:40:59 -0000

Comment(by hartke@…):

 Proposed terminology:

   - Verb: observe (the steady state)
   - Noun: Observation
     - these are about the relationship between client and server

   - Verb: Establish an Observation (client action)
   - Verb: Refresh an Observation (client action)
   - Verb: End an Observation (server or client action)
     - these are about the changes of that relationship

 Peter points out that out of the English language meanings of
 "observation", a single thing having being observed [Webster 2] is now
 more frequent than the action or process of "observation" [Webster 1].

 From [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/observation Merriam-
 Webster]: ob·ser·va·tion (noun)
    1. an act or instance of observing a custom, rule, or law
    2. an act of recognizing and noting a fact or occurrence often
 involving measurement with instruments
 [...]

Ticket URL: <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/core/trac/ticket/33#comment:1>
core <http://tools.ietf.org/core/>

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From: Peter Bigot <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 12:52:49 -0600

>  more frequent than the action or process of "observation" [Webster 1].

I'm not going to try to defend that as a rule, just saying that the proposed
use is not natural to me.  While "subscription" clearly indicates a
relation, "observation" primarily indicates information.

   - I have a subscription to The New Yorker, and the food issue was pretty
   good.
   - *The food issue subscription of The New Yorker was pretty good.
   - I observe the temperature on my back deck regularly, and this morning
   it was 3 degrees.
   - *I have an observation to the temperature on my back deck, and this
   morning it was 3 degrees.
   - The back deck temperature observation this morning was 3 degrees.

(*: ungrammatical, ?: questionably grammatical)

If you look at the examples at the Merriam Webster site, only one could be
read as a use of "observation" to refer to a long-standing relation as
opposed to a single act or instance, in my opinion.

"Notification" is like "observation" to me, except it highlights the act of
conveying the information, not the information itself.  Since REST has
influenced CoRE, I'd come to refer to the resource representations produced
by whatever relation we're talking about as "observations", which are
conveyed through "notifications" expressed as a new transaction.  This might
explain why using "observation" for the relation makes me uncomfortable: I
was using it for something else in this domain.

At any rate, another opportunity for the working group to chime in.  I'd
have been comfortable sticking with "subscription" for the relationship.
English doesn't seem to have any synonyms for the word that don't convey
something different.

Peter

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 11:40 AM, core issue tracker <[email-masked]>wrote:

>  From [http://www.merriam-webster.com/I don't dictionary/observation<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/observation>Merriam-
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