From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Terminology in multi-tty primitives Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:31:54 +0900 Message-ID: <87iqp0syet.fsf@xemacs.org> References: <87zlies8wo.fsf@xemacs.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1230701366 18873 80.91.229.12 (31 Dec 2008 05:29:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:29:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@gnu.org, cyd@stupidchicken.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 31 06:30:30 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LHtf4-0004ev-8D for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:30:30 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53926 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LHtdq-0002gk-0s for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:29:14 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LHtdm-0002fQ-3c for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:29:10 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LHtdl-0002ee-9X for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:29:09 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=36728 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LHtdl-0002eU-6R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:29:09 -0500 Original-Received: from mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:52287) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LHtdf-0000dv-V3; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:29:04 -0500 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id A9E3E820F; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:29:00 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id C525611F559; Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:31:54 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM 8.0.12-devo-585 under 21.5 (beta28) "fuki" 83e35df20028+ XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:107446 Archived-At: Richard M Stallman writes: > I used to agree with you, but The Kids These Days (ie, those who have > grown up with WIMPy interfaces) think of a window as a (foreground) > process. If the window goes away, the process stops. > > But that is generally false. For instance, if you iconify a > terminal, the processes running in it do not stop. Sure. But that's machine-centric thinking. Here, we're discussing the user interface. From the user's point of view, the *user interaction process* stops, and that is generally all the user cares about when suspending a process: "Get out of my face so I can do something else I want to do!!!" If the process wants to do some background work, how often would the user object? I don't care what the interface is called. But my feeling is that the primary UI operation here is "withdrawing a frame", and that whether the process gets STOPed or not is an implementation detail. For example, in a terminal-based emacs you could (in theory) do M-x long-running-process RET C-z bg %emacs # do other work fg %emacs to the same effect as iconifying a GUI window. In fact, a little magic with keyboard macros and timers or subprocesses could presumably allow us to write `execute-key-sequence-and-background-emacs', which GUI-habituated users might prefer to bind to C-z for use in a terminal-based environment. (Don't take that entirely seriously, I haven't thought it through.)