Granted, the term is overloaded (strong Unix
connotation indeed).
I still believe it conveys the idea well
enough though only when applied between two MSHs. (does not capture well cases
where more than 2 MSHs are involved)
Trying to find a more appropriate term
based on what pipes really are:
- pipes are partitioning the total set of
messages transmitted à set of pipes = a message partition, and:
pipe = message set, or subset, or
class.
- a pipe can be modeled as a flow, like in
flow networks (over a graph of MSHs). A pipe over a network of MSHs = 1
function p that returns the number of messages exchanged between any pair (sending
MSH / receiving MSH) with this pipe name: p( M1,M2) = n.
Pipe = message flow, or subflow, or flux,
or traffic, or dispatch...
Jacques
I keep having a hard time getting rid of the connotations of
"pipe" from the unix world. A pipe, in that context, is a software
component (an interprocess communication connector) that hooks the output from
one software program to the input of a second (normally different) software
program. There are named pipes also that can persist between processes, etc.
Can we discuss finding a term for what we now call "message pipes"
that does not have these associations?