v0.31 Talk:Repeater

Request name change

This are not repeaters in normal understanding [1]! A repeater is a device that takes a signal and gives it on. This are clock generators. [2]. --Axkibe 16:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

In DF the usage of a repeater is limited, but think of it as e.g. you want one pressure plate in an dangerous area to give a signal to many things, and you want to extend that later on without going there. Then you need a repeater, some construction that takes that signal, opens e.g. a floodgate and thus signals another pressure plate that does all things. If you want to add more tasks to that event, you do not have a dwarf to go to the first plate again. --Axkibe 16:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

You might notice that according to that wikipedia article you linked, a repeater is also an electronic device, so it wouldn't be appropriate to use for the devices you describe either, using your criteria at least. In reality, "repeater" is a word with many definitions, and it's being used here in the most common sense of "a person or thing that repeats," found at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/repeater and elsewhere. This is not only correct usage, it is also common usage, which is very important.98.203.173.56 20:30, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

A person that *repeats* what it gets as input.Thats a repeater. Its not a cyclic action. Is the common usage limited to DF community? Since I never heared repeater used for a clock generator elsewhere.--Axkibe 14:51, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

No, repeat has a broader meaning than that as well. "To do, make, or perform again: to repeat an action," from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/repeat. For instance, you can "repeat yourself"; you can even "repeat yourself forever." This is what a DF clock generator or repeater does: it triggers, and it triggers again. I believe you that "repeater" has a very specific meaning in the world of electronics, and if DF was populated primarily by electronics aficionados we'd probably be using the much more specific "clock generator," but in common usage, it just means something that does the same thing more than once. I assume that since these definitions exist in popular and accepted dictionaries that this meaning is not limited to the DF community (are they deciding the English language based just on us?!?). I also think it's important to note that if you search the forums for "clock generator" you get zero hits. Nobody is using that term to refer to the structures in question. I don't know if it matters to you, but the structures in question do not even necessarily fire at predictable intervals-- you couldn't build a functional clock out of many of them.98.203.173.56 20:15, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I hope you are okay with the footnote I made in the article as compromise. Since as *device* I never heared outside of DF of a "repeater" to be used what in fact is an oscillator. --Axkibe 21:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)