Slatepack: stupid name?

Rants & Flames
1

Why not just call it what it is? A payment request or, better yet, invoice.

invoice: An invoice is a commercial document that includes an itemized list of goods or services furnished by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction.

Interactive transaction summarized:

  • Sender: Here’s my invoice I created for our transaction, can you sign it?

  • Receiver: Sure, here’s the signed invoice. I agree to the terms of the contract.

  • Sender: I also will sign the invoice to show that I agree with the terms and recognize your signature. Miners, here’s our transaction. We both signed the invoice to prove the transaction is valid. Will you accept this into the next block if I pay you a small fee?

Why did you need to invent an entirely new word to the English lexicon when there is a perfectly suitable word recognizable to most literate English speakers around the world? “Slatepack” means nothing to anyone. This adds an additional layer of complexity to the already foreign transaction scheme grin uses. It makes something already confusing to new users even more confusing. I think developers and community members alike should reflect on this poor verbiage. Using the simple term “invoice” would simplify the process immensely. The interactive transaction system is not so innovative that it warrants an entirely new word.

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2

I think slatepack is the name for the text encryption format interface, not for the special content. You can call an invoice, an invoice. Regardless of the format, it could be printed paper, PDF file or an email with a slatepack-encrypted-invoice someday. But I don’t know if the invoice function is already fully usable implemented.

3

same thinking with topic owner, the term slatepack is quite non-sense and difficult to understand for new users…

4

Indeed, it is just the technical name of the text formatting and enryption.

For new users it would indeed probably be better to use a non technical term.
E.g, you simply say can you sign my invoice, or can you send me your payment-request.
Transaction message without content would be a bit to ambiguous though since you do not know if it is for paying or receiving.

However, in practice we use the term "slate-pack message* plus some context. I do not think there is a problem since everyone knows what a message is. Often as a user you give context, e.g. “can you send me a slatepack message so I can finalize the transaction to you”. So in the end it is not really a problem that people do not fully comprehend what a slatepack is becaue they understand what it does.
It is a bit similar to Bitcoin Electrum multisig, can you send me you Partial Bitcoin Transaction (PBT) message or file. I think most people do not understand what it is or how it works (something quite a bit similar to a slatepack message), but they understand conceptually what it does so it is fine.

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6

My argument that I have laid out before:

  1. Slatepack - neutral. Not predefined. Invites the user to learn what it is.

  2. Transaction - most accurate. Slatepacks are used to execute transactions.

  3. Invoice - worst option of all. Invoice is used in English speaking countries to refer to a bill or a demand for payment, not the execution of a payment. It’s dangerously misleading to call something that actually transfers funds an invoice. If invoice had to be used it could only accurately refer to the first step slatepack where a transaction is being proposed rather than completed. It would still be problematic though because in common language when you sign an invoice you are still not executing a transaction, you are only agreeing to make a future transaction. When you sign a slatepack at any step in the process you are actively executing a transaction.

Slatepacks is fine.

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7

I still believe contract terminilogy is the best in the end since both sender and receiver have to "Sign* to make a transaction. So we should work on testing the contract branch to unlock that and all other new functionalities such as bidirectional payment proofs and hopefully soon also Pay-Join.

8

I have the same problem with that. Because a contract is not a payment, it’s an agreement to make a payment. In my world if you signed a “contract” and then saw that funds had been debited from your account you’d be screaming.

But I can go back to letting it rest. Terminology can always be sorted out later.

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