Re: Etymology of `visiting' files

["Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>]

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