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I agree with Fred. "Session" has a very specific meaning, and once I've established a session, I intend to communicate over that session, configure the session, and eventually close the session. If you tell me I'm to establish a session, configure my link, and close my conversation, you leave me scratching my head wondering if my program is supposed to have three variables instead of one. If you find your prose becoming awkward, you might try naming the session, e.g. "Establish a session S, then (do various stuff with S)." But don't leave me guessing about whether you're talking about what I think you're talking about, namely a session.
regards
-Laura
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Stone [mailto:rstone75 -at- kc -dot- rr -dot- com]
Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 2:05 PM
To: Fred Ridder
Cc: kevin -dot- mclauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Session session session...
Hi all
Based on what I've seen, I might suggest that "conversation" would work
equally as well. After all, isn't a "session" really just a specific
"conversation" occurring between two points?
Then again, conversation is 12 letters long and session is only 7. So if
you are worrying about repetitive typing, that probably totally defeats
the purpose.
Cheers... Rick :)
Fred Ridder wrote:
> In the context of communication across a computer network, "session" has a very specific meaning and there really is no direct synonym. One common definition of a session is that it is a semi-permanent dialog between two end-user application processes. If you can find some other single word that captures that specific abstract concept, I say go with it.
>
> But you need to be *very* careful about the possible alternative terms you mentioned, because "connection" and "link" also have very specific meanings in network models. Whether you're talking about the seven-layer OSI model or the TCP/IP model, connections and links only exist in the lower layers of the model (the ones concerned with physically transporting the data or media) while sessions are the concern of the upper layers--either a layer of its own in the OSI model or part of the application layer in TCP/IP.
>
> In most cases, sessions are involved with signaling (such as high-level request-response messages that are exchanged between two application processes about what kind of data or media needs to be transported and whether any setup, such as initializing a codec, needs to be done) rather than streaming. Because sessions are not directly invloved in the data transfer or media streaming, it really isn't appropriate to think of a session as a connection or link even in the common-sense understanding of those terms.
>
> -Fred Ridder
>
>
>
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