* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files @ 2016-08-09 6:42 Udyant Wig 0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Udyant Wig @ 2016-08-09 6:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs; +Cc: rt Thanks for the link. I mentioned elsethread that the TWENEX manual was one of the documents I had consulted to find an answer to this, but found no explanation for the choice of verb. -- Udyant Wig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Etymology of `visiting' files @ 2016-08-08 9:54 Udyant Wig 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Udyant Wig @ 2016-08-08 9:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'? From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp manuals, I understand the process the verb names. However, I wanted to find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems. -- Udyant Wig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 9:54 Udyant Wig @ 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon 2016-08-08 12:36 ` Yuri Khan ` (3 more replies) 2016-08-08 13:58 ` Ted Zlatanov 2016-08-08 19:36 ` Robert Thorpe 2 siblings, 4 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Pascal J. Bourguignon @ 2016-08-08 10:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs Udyant Wig <udyant@rudiments.goosenet.in> writes: > What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'? > > From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp > manuals, I understand the process the verb names. However, I wanted to > find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own > expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that > would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems. When you visit a friend's home, you enter it, you can look around, and you may touch and change something (move a vase from the table to the console) or not, and then leave the house. Same with files. visit = (or edit load) edit implies some mutation. load implies no mutation. When you visit, you can do either. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon @ 2016-08-08 12:36 ` Yuri Khan 2016-08-08 12:37 ` Narendra Joshi ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Yuri Khan @ 2016-08-08 12:36 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote: >> What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'? >> my own expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load' The word “edit” implies a one-time change. The word “load” implies creating an in-memory copy of the whole file. > When you visit a friend's home, you enter it, you can look around, and > you may touch and change something (move a vase from the table to the > console) or not, and then leave the house. When you visit a friend’s home, you enter a small part of it, and you may touch and change something in your immediate vicinity, or you can explore different parts of the house. The word “visit” might, at some time in the past, have meant getting in position to perform modifications *without loading* the whole file into memory. This could be an important factor when files were big and memory was small. The changes could then be accumulated in memory as a diff, small enough to fit in memory, to be applied on file save. I do not know if this kind of memory use optimization has ever existed in Emacs. But it might have, or it might have been considered a future-in-the-past idea good enough to affect the terminology. Of course, nowadays we have 64-bit address space and more virtual memory than is ever necessary to edit any reasonably sized file (with the notable exception of /dev/sda), so we can afford “loading” files. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon 2016-08-08 12:36 ` Yuri Khan @ 2016-08-08 12:37 ` Narendra Joshi 2016-08-08 12:48 ` Florian v. Savigny 2016-08-09 5:17 ` Udyant Wig 3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Narendra Joshi @ 2016-08-08 12:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Pascal J. Bourguignon; +Cc: help-gnu-emacs I think it's a buffer visiting the file. The buffer is the guest. Thanks for this perspective. :-) Narendra Joshi On 8 Aug 2016 16:28, "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote: > Udyant Wig <udyant@rudiments.goosenet.in> writes: > > > What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'? > > > > From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp > > manuals, I understand the process the verb names. However, I wanted to > > find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own > > expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that > > would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems. > > When you visit a friend's home, you enter it, you can look around, and > you may touch and change something (move a vase from the table to the > console) or not, and then leave the house. > > Same with files. > > visit = (or edit load) > > edit implies some mutation. > load implies no mutation. > > When you visit, you can do either. > > -- > __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ > “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a > dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to > keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon 2016-08-08 12:36 ` Yuri Khan 2016-08-08 12:37 ` Narendra Joshi @ 2016-08-08 12:48 ` Florian v. Savigny 2016-08-09 5:17 ` Udyant Wig 3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Florian v. Savigny @ 2016-08-08 12:48 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs > When you visit a friend's home, you enter it, you can look around, and > you may touch and change something (move a vase from the table to the > console) or not, and then leave the house. > > Same with files. Wonderful and convincing (or should I simply say "perfect"?) explanation, Pascal! I really like that. But now my sense of sense has been whetted: Why are all the functions for visiting files called "find-file-..." rather than "visit-file-..."??? (Surely they do nothing in the way of finding out where a file is?) Can we please rectify this for future generations? ;-) Best regards, Florian -- Florian von Savigny Melanchthonstr. 41 33615 Bielefeld ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2016-08-08 12:48 ` Florian v. Savigny @ 2016-08-09 5:17 ` Udyant Wig 3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Udyant Wig @ 2016-08-09 5:17 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> writes: > When you visit a friend's home, you enter it, you can look around, and > you may touch and change something (move a vase from the table to the > console) or not, and then leave the house. > > Same with files. > > visit = (or edit load) > > edit implies some mutation. > load implies no mutation. > > When you visit, you can do either. That is a nice and reasonable rationale. Thanks. -- Udyant Wig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 9:54 Udyant Wig 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon @ 2016-08-08 13:58 ` Ted Zlatanov 2016-08-09 5:37 ` Udyant Wig 2016-08-08 19:36 ` Robert Thorpe 2 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread From: Ted Zlatanov @ 2016-08-08 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs On Mon, 08 Aug 2016 15:24:31 +0530 Udyant Wig <udyant@rudiments.goosenet.in> wrote: UW> What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'? UW> From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp UW> manuals, I understand the process the verb names. However, I wanted to UW> find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own UW> expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that UW> would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems. The term "visiting" does not show up in a 1978 guide to Emacs (but maybe it was already in use): https://web.archive.org/web/20110723033542/http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/~ashawley/gnu/emacs/doc/emacs-1978.html#Basic-File_002dHandling-Commands It shows up in 1981, in the RMS paper on Emacs: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html Either way, I think it predates modern CUA standards, which emerged in the late 80's, and which AFAIK set down the File menu (with Quit and Open items) consistently. HTH Ted ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 13:58 ` Ted Zlatanov @ 2016-08-09 5:37 ` Udyant Wig 2016-08-09 15:37 ` Barry Margolin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread From: Udyant Wig @ 2016-08-09 5:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes: > The term "visiting" does not show up in a 1978 guide to Emacs (but > maybe it was already in use): > https://web.archive.org/web/20110723033542/http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/~ashawley/gnu/emacs/doc/emacs-1978.html#Basic-File_002dHandling-Commands Thanks for the link. I was unaware of this one. > It shows up in 1981, in the RMS paper on Emacs: > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html I had checked this paper and also the Emacs manual for TWENEX users (AIM-555). Both mention `visiting' but include no rationale for the choice. Perhaps the technical meaning (of `visiting') was sufficiently similar to regular English usage that it did not seem to need explanation. > Either way, I think it predates modern CUA standards, which emerged in > the late 80's, and which AFAIK set down the File menu (with Quit and > Open items) consistently. IIRC, CUA came (long) after various Emacsen were written and in use; it was mostly an effort to standardize DOS applications. The Wikipedia article says as much and lists a number of IBM documents beginning 1987. <URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access> > HTH > Ted It did. -- Udyant Wig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-09 5:37 ` Udyant Wig @ 2016-08-09 15:37 ` Barry Margolin 0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Barry Margolin @ 2016-08-09 15:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: help-gnu-emacs In article <87lh06bizj.fsf@rudiments.goosenet.in>, Udyant Wig <udyant.wig@gmail.com> wrote: > Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes: > > The term "visiting" does not show up in a 1978 guide to Emacs (but > > maybe it was already in use): > > https://web.archive.org/web/20110723033542/http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/ > > ~ashawley/gnu/emacs/doc/emacs-1978.html#Basic-File_002dHandling-Commands > > Thanks for the link. I was unaware of this one. > > > It shows up in 1981, in the RMS paper on Emacs: > > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html > > I had checked this paper and also the Emacs manual for TWENEX users > (AIM-555). Both mention `visiting' but include no rationale for the > choice. Perhaps the technical meaning (of `visiting') was sufficiently > similar to regular English usage that it did not seem to need > explanation. I think it may also be a bit of a retronym. Emacs has two commands for opening files: C-x C-f and C-x C-v. They needed mnemonics that distinguished them, so the first is "Find" and the second is "Visit". GNU Emacs has abandoned the mnemonic name of C-x C-v. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: Etymology of `visiting' files 2016-08-08 9:54 Udyant Wig 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon 2016-08-08 13:58 ` Ted Zlatanov @ 2016-08-08 19:36 ` Robert Thorpe 2 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Robert Thorpe @ 2016-08-08 19:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Udyant Wig; +Cc: help-gnu-emacs Udyant Wig <udyant@rudiments.goosenet.in> writes: > What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'? > > From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp > manuals, I understand the process the verb names. However, I wanted to > find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own > expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that > would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems. I expect it's mnemonic. On early versions of Emacs before GNU Emacs using multiple buffers was considered advanced. Emacs opened in a "Main" buffer. The keybinding C-x C-v ("visit-file") visited a file in that buffer. The keybinding C-x C-f ("find-file") visited a file in a new buffer. See pages 71 & 83 of this document from 1981. http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/mit_emacs_170_teco_1220/01/info/emacs.guide.html BR, Robert Thorpe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2016-08-09 15:37 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 11+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2016-08-09 6:42 Etymology of `visiting' files Udyant Wig -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 2016-08-08 9:54 Udyant Wig 2016-08-08 10:53 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon 2016-08-08 12:36 ` Yuri Khan 2016-08-08 12:37 ` Narendra Joshi 2016-08-08 12:48 ` Florian v. Savigny 2016-08-09 5:17 ` Udyant Wig 2016-08-08 13:58 ` Ted Zlatanov 2016-08-09 5:37 ` Udyant Wig 2016-08-09 15:37 ` Barry Margolin 2016-08-08 19:36 ` Robert Thorpe
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