Why service provider method is called "provider", but not "provide"?

[Remi Forax]

----- Mail original -----
> De: "Alex Sviridov" <ooo_saturn7 at mail.ru>
> À: "jigsaw-dev" <jigsaw-dev at openjdk.java.net>
> Envoyé: Vendredi 20 Novembre 2020 12:48:21
> Objet: Why service provider method is called "provider", but not "provide"?

> Hello all,

Hi Alex,

> 
> According to this tutorial
> https://www.logicbig.com/tutorials/core-java-tutorial/modules/service-provider-method.html
> we can declare in module-info provider class with "provider" method. For
> example,
> 
> ......
> public class TheServiceProvider {
>   public static AService provider() {
>       return new AServiceImpl();
>   }
> }
> 
> The only thing what I don’t understand is why this method is called "provider".
> The method doesn’t return
> provider, method returns an instance of the service, so, as I understand, the
> method must be named
> "provide". And, as I understand, provider is usually the class, that has
> "provide" method.

The spec is in ServiceLoader
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/15/docs/api/java.base/java/util/ServiceLoader.html

yes, the name is not very logical.

> 
> Of course that’s not very important, but it is JDK, so it was developed by very
> experienced java developer
> who should know java naming convention and I want to understand why this did so.
> Could anyone explain?

I believe it's due to the fact that most services used by the JDK are themselves factories.
And naming is hard.

> 
> 
> --
> Best regards, Alex Orlov

regards,
Rémi