From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: plz -> curl? Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 08:16:10 +0000 Message-ID: References: <874k1vzyom.fsf@posteo.net> <104ffa6b-12ae-53df-e289-aba7d7200654@alphapapa.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="6823"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: Adam Porter , philipk@posteo.net, mardani29@yahoo.es, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue May 17 10:19:18 2022 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1nqsQI-0001V2-5y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 17 May 2022 10:19:18 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58392 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1nqsQG-0004av-OM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 17 May 2022 04:19:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:49370) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1nqsNN-0002YC-Sa for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 17 May 2022 04:16:19 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:53780 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1nqsNJ-0008HP-SB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 17 May 2022 04:16:17 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 43721 invoked by uid 3782); 17 May 2022 08:16:11 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p4fe1589c.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [79.225.88.156]) (using STARTTLS) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 17 May 2022 10:16:10 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 3334 invoked by uid 1000); 17 May 2022 08:16:10 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Submission-Agent: TMDA/1.3.x (Ph3nix) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de Received-SPF: pass client-ip=193.149.48.1; envelope-from=acm@muc.de; helo=mail.muc.de X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE=-0.01 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:289833 Archived-At: Hello, Richard. On Mon, May 16, 2022 at 19:25:41 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > We have arrived at a deep and fundamental disagreement about what it > means to make a program clear. I have pointed out that the name "plz" > gives no information about what the package does. It is totally > unhelpful. The abbreviation PLZ is instantly recognisable to a German speaker. It means "postcode"/"zipcode", something not entirely irrelevant here, if perhaps coincidental. > You contend that an arbitrary and unhelpful name is just as good as a > helpful name. The argument is that we have commands to do searches > from the name to its purpose and from words in its purpose to the > name. For that matter, the name Emacs is just as unhelpful to somebody who doesn't know the program. There's likely nobody reading this group who has any difficulty typing in xkcd to get to the source of wit and wisdom. > Those commands are helpful, but using them is laborious by comparison > woth the simple verbal connection. Commands need to be typed into the minibuffer. A short prefix is easier to type than a long one. plz- is, for example, easier to type than byte-compile-. > For the packages feature, I am a beginner. I don't know those > commands. I will learn these commands if I start using packages more, > but there will always be many users who are beginners in this. As am I. > Whenever we add a new package, we should consider whether to change > its name first. But plz has not been installed for long. Giving it a > clear, meaningful name now won't cause any pain. If by that is meant a long name, it will cause pain. See above. > A clear meaningful name does not have to be long. Someone suggested > `curl' -- meaningful, and quite short. Perhaps `curl-url' would be > even more helpful, to the many who who don't use curl -- and it is > still short. It's medium lnog. > If no one has a better idea, let's rename it that way now. I think it better to leave the name as it is, if for no better reason than respect for the wishes of its author. > It would still be a good thing to design a uniform interface for > fetching a page through any of the various methods Emacs supports. > But that may or may not get written, so let's DTRT for this package > now. > -- > Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) > Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) > Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) > Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).