> pessimistic rendering: waiting for the server response before updating the UI
I hate the phrase "I'm a realist not a pessimist" as much as the next person, but isn't this actually "realistic rendering"?
I hate the phrase "I'm a realist not a pessimist" as much as the next person, but isn't this actually "realistic rendering"?
"Optimistic" often means "assume X, perform or calculate something, change the result if X turns out to be false".
"Pessimistic" often means "assume not-X, perform or calculate something, maybe change the result if X turns out to be true".
This comes up in other domains.
For example in compilers (and reverse engineering decompilers ;-) there are optimistic and pessimistic analyses.
An optimistic analysis might initially assume a particular variable has a specific value at a particular location, or a branch is always taken. Then trace through the program paths, using that assumption (which limits those paths). If it loops back to the location with a different value in the variable or different value for the branch condition, broaden the assumption and update the trace.
A pessimistic analysis might initially assume the variable at a particular location could have any value because it hasn't yet traced everywhere to find out the possibilities, or initially assume both directions at the branch could happen and include them both in the trace. By the time it finishes tracing all paths and values, those assumptions may turn out pessimistic and it can start pruning away unused options.
These two strategies can yield different answers, and for some analyses the optimistic strategy gives more accurate results than the pessimistic strategy.
So which one is more "real"? :-)