Rename "Preview Queue Element" to "Preview Queue Head"

[Petru_Tarabuta]

The element that is next-in-line to be dequeued is often called the "head" of the queue.*

The current name of the "Preview Queue Element" function suggests that any element could be previewed, not just the head. However, the function can only preview the head. Therefore, "Preview Queue Head" seems to be a more correct, more intuitive name.

"Preview Queue Element" would be the best name if the function would have an "Index" input that would allow any element to be previewed, not just the head. However, the downsides of the "Index" input are discussed in this idea: Preview Queue Element with Index .

The text in the help file of the function should read "Returns the head (the element at the front of the queue) without removing the element from the queue."

The downside of the new name is that it introduces the concept of "head" of queue. The concept is explained in the help text.

*In chapter 10 "Elementary Data Structures" (p. 234) of "Introduction to Algorithms", 3rd edition, by CLRS, it is mentioned that "The queue has a head and a tail".

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I'll grant that you have a point, but I don't think it is worth the pain to change.

A name that has already been in place for 20 years and is replicated already into NXG would be a major effort to change, especially since that node appears in things as fundamental as our Core customer education courses. Given that the node has no input for "index", anyone who thinks it can look at arbitrary elements will figure out quickly that it isn't the case, even without reading the documentation.

Changing the name would also break scripting code that identifies nodes by name. That's a hard burden to code around for a node that has existed so long.

So although your suggestion is reasonable, the effort involved in changing it does not seem worth it to me.

On a related note, you may observe that our existing documentation avoids mentioning "head" and "tail". That's somewhat deliberate... the two terms did not localize easily when we were originally documenting the queues... we had a problem with translators who localized the phrases "put data into the tail" or "data comes out of the head" into somewhat visceral/obscene content. 🙂 Thus we use the just-as-precise-but-less-bodily terms "back" and "front". That also matches LV's general goal of avoiding technical terms if we don't have to include them in order to maximize the number of people who can intuitively guess functionality since our target market is non-programmers. Given that, if we were to rename it, we'd probably use "Preview Queue Front".

[Darren]

Declined for reasons listed in AristosQueue's post.

[Petru_Tarabuta]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the in-depth reply. I can see now how difficult it is to change the name, and I agree that the effort is more than the reward. I also agree with "Preview Queue Front" being an even better name.

Thanks,
Petru