Re: The minibuffer vs. Dialog Boxes (Re: Making XEmacs be more up-to-date)

[ams@kemisten.nu (Alfred M. Szmidt)]

* Michael Toomim writes:
> There's a thing called "user-centered design".  In modern times, it
> is generally accepted to be good.

Maybe you should call it "new user-centred design"?  Because it surely doesn't
make any sense on changing the name of such a basic concept like "buffer" to
"document" or "file" when you are already familiar with Emacs.  The whole
terminology is so hard coded into Emacs that it would be a pitta to change,
and would cause more harm than good.  Think of all the old time users, they
would still call buffers for buffers, and new users would ask what a buffer is.

Maybe the entry in the Emacs manual (Glossary) should be fixed to describe
what a buffer is so that it makes more sense to a user, but changing it to
something totally different? No. That would be like rewriting Emacs.

Buffer
     The buffer is the basic editing unit; one buffer corresponds to
     one text being edited.  You can have several buffers, but at any
     time you are editing only one, the `current buffer,' though
     several can be visible when you are using multiple windows (q.v.).
     Most buffers are visiting (q.v.) some file.  *Note Buffers::.

Personally, I think it is pretty clear, do you have any ideas on how one could
improve this?

-- 
Alfred M. Szmidt