[PATCH v7 01/10] counter: Introduce the Generic Counter interface

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 12:26:10 -0400 William Breathitt Gray [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Also, many many drivers deal with signals-as-an-electrical-thing - is
it appropriate for this particular driver to take that namespace?

In the context of the Generic Counter paradigm, a "Signal" is an
abstraction for the stream of data that is fed to the counter device for
evaluation (triggering updates for the readable "Count"). In many cases
a "Signal" correlates with a physical electrical line (for example the A
and B electrical lines for a quadrature encoder), but this isn't a hard
requirement as the paradigm permits more abstract data streams.

I decided on "Signal" to match the naming convention that appears in the
datasheets of many counter devices, but "Line" may be a decent
alternative name we could use to indicate a counter device input data
stream.

I'd like to get some other opinions as well before I make a naming
change to "Signal" -- whether to stay with "Signal," switch to "Line," or
rename to something else. For what it's worth, I think it's unlikely for
a counter device driver author to confuse a Counter Signal with the
Linux OS signal within the context of the Generic Counter paradigm and
their respective counter device datasheet.

gc_signal_* would be better.  That retains "signal", but makes
it clear that the symbols belong to generic counter.