Re: *scratch* buffer documentation

[Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@traduction-libre.org>]

> On Dec 27, 2019, at 5:25, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> This behavior is specific to Emacs and its buffers and should be properly documented.
> 
> It _is_ documented.  The disagreement between us is _where_ should it
> be documented.

Eli,

I am starting to see where the disagreement is.

> What you seem to be asking is unreasonable: to have everything related
> to buffers in one section.

What about a 1-word addition? The File Handling section has the word "permanent" in it:

======================================================================
18 File Handling
****************

The operating system stores data permanently in named “files”, so most
of the text you edit with Emacs comes from a file and is ultimately
stored in a file.
======================================================================


What about adding a word that indicates the temporary nature of buffers as a qualifier to "object" in Using Multiple Buffers?

That way we have a clear opposition early in the description of the two objects and that would help discovery/understanding the other traits of buffers.

There are a number of words that fit the description. The antonym of "permanent" seems to be "temporary" and synonyms of "temporaty" are "transient," "ephemeral," "transitory," "provisory" and a few others. I like "provisory" because it implies a condition to change the status of the buffer.

So what about something like that:

======================================================================
19 Using Multiple Buffers
*************************

The text you are editing in Emacs resides in a provisory object called a
“Buffer”.
======================================================================


When I read "provisory" I have alarm bells ringing and I want to know more, so I check the rest of the documentation and indeed, I find the kill command and that confirms that buffers are indeed provisory and need to be saved to a *permanent* file to have their contents archived.

Would that be an agreeable proposal?


Jean-Christophe Helary
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http://mac4translators.blogspot.com @brandelune