Re: basic question: going back to dired

[Bastien Guerry <bzg@altern.org>]

"Juanma Barranquero" <lekktu@gmail.com> writes:

> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 10:26, Bastien Guerry <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
>
>> Adopting Emacs terminology is not good per se, it's good because it
>> helps people adopt Emacs.
>
> Adapting Emacs terminology to current conventions would perhaps be
> good for the very same reason.

Yes, as long as the terminology matches the underlying concepts.  

For example, replacing "buffer" by "workspace" in the manual would not
only be a huge work, it would also be misleading: because you would soon
have to deal with expectations that people already have with the notion
of "workspace".  So instead of saying "A workspace in Emacs is like the
one you have in Eclipse, but there is a difference..." - why not stick
to history?  

> I'm not for or against changing Emacs' terminology. I think it would
> be a huge amount of work. But I don't understand why some people
> reacts as if the very idea is flawed. 

I do react about terminology because I think such a discussion is never
about terminology only.  It's also about the concepts behind.  If Emacs
were more file-centric, then I wouldn't understand why there is no
shortcut (sic!) to Open/Close.

> There's nothing sacred in "buffer" and "keybinding" and "minibuffer",
> just history. The change should be susceptible to rational (if perhaps
> a bit pointless) discussion, because it is not hard to find good
> arguments for it; "frame/window" vs "window/pane" is a good example.

Ok, history always comes with some arbitrary choice.  But it's hard to
move from an arbitrary choice with a non-arbitrary reason.

-- 
Bastien