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A better name for the ".virtualize" accessor? #241

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TomNicholas opened this issue Sep 25, 2024 · 2 comments
Open

A better name for the ".virtualize" accessor? #241

TomNicholas opened this issue Sep 25, 2024 · 2 comments
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documentation Improvements or additions to documentation

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@TomNicholas
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I'm not super happy with the vds.virtualize.to_<format> accessor name. It's confusing - really the "virtualize" accessor doesn't "virtualize" anything, the references are already virtual, it just allows you to write them out somewhere.

A better name might be .serialize.to_<format> or even just .write.to_<format> (as these methods correspond to virtualizarr "writers"). The problem with those names is that they don't really indicate that you're about to enter a virtualizarr-specific namespace. But then again if you attempt to call ds.virtualize.to_<format>() on a non-virtual dataset you will get a clear error anyway.

See also #239. This is also a manifestation of #171.

@TomNicholas TomNicholas added the documentation Improvements or additions to documentation label Sep 25, 2024
@keewis
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keewis commented Sep 25, 2024

I wonder whether we should try to instead find a summarizing name (virtualizarr, for example) instead of more specific ones like serialize or write? That way, we don't have to try to describe what is in the namespace (you probably won't find a name for the writers that, at the same time, fits the rename_paths method).

@TomNicholas
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That's a very good point @keewis - I forgot about the rename_paths method. Yeah having virtualizarr instead of virtualize would be a minor improvement, as the verb virtualize is misleading and unneccessary here.

@TomNicholas TomNicholas changed the title A better name for the ".virtualize" writing accessor? A better name for the ".virtualize" accessor? Sep 25, 2024
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