What do you think about the naming of the `close` ...

# coroutines

[Martin Devillers]

What do you think about the naming of the close method on SendChannel? IMO it’s a bit confusing, because it brings up the idea of a Closeable, which is very different (especially since there are plenty of channels which don’t need to be closed because they send indefinitely). The documentation leads me to suggest something like sendLast, which I think would convey the intent better.

[streetsofboston]

Or maybe even ‘complete()’, to use a Rx-like verb.

[elizarov]

But it is a channel. Just like a network socket. So you close it. That is the verb you ought to use for it.

[streetsofboston]

Closing a channel closes it for sending, but not (necessarily) receiving.

[Martin Devillers]

Would you say that using a channel without closing it is a mistake? I don’t see anything in the documentation to suggest that, and I think that there’s plenty of valid use-cases for it. I think that’s where the confusion with `Closeable`’s close comes from. The channel doesn’t hold any resources AFAIK, so it’s more specific than the socket.

[elizarov]

It does hold resources. There is another coroutine in the other side, waiting. And if you don’t close the channel it is stuck. It is completely different concept than Rx.

[Martin Devillers]

I see your point. In practice, I often find that the waiting coroutine has a scope which means that takes care of its own cancellation, therefore I don’t need to close the channel. Maybe I’m using channels too much like streams of events.

[streetsofboston]

@elizarov Good points. Yeah, then using the name ‘complete’ is not the best choice 🙂