[webkit-dev] the name "AtomicString"

[Michael Catanzaro]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 9:31 PM, Darin Adler <darin at apple.com> wrote:
> I’ve gotten used to the name AtomicString over the years, but I 
> wouldn’t strongly object to changing it if other programmers are 
> often confused by it’s similarity to the term “atomic 
> operations”.

Well there were two other developers in the thread Ryosuke linked to 
who made the exact same mistake as me, so I do think the current name 
is problematic. A change wouldn't need to be drastic, though. I think 
suggestions from the old thread like "StringAtom" or "AtomString" would 
be unproblematic. The problem is the specific word "atomic" carries an 
expectation that the object be safe to access concurrently across 
threads without locks; I think that expectation doesn't exist if not 
for the "ic" at the end.

FWIW I've only ever heard the "interned string" terminology prior to 
now.

Michael