From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: basic question: going back to dired Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:44:27 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <96a95b9c-048d-4bb0-aaa1-4b552623bde6@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> References: <4884DC7F.6060406@gmail.com> <819feff4-76e3-4bf8-9ece-7b47f099efc2@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1216762865 16551 80.91.229.12 (22 Jul 2008 21:41:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:41:05 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 22 23:41:53 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KLPc6-0000wS-05 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:41:42 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:55531 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KLPbC-0000Fv-Oi for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:40:46 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 76 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.97.120 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1216759468 28997 127.0.0.1 (22 Jul 2008 20:44:28 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:44:28 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.97.120; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Safari/525.22, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:160475 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:55823 Archived-At: Hi all, instead of responding to each message in this thread, i thought i just write one post. =E2=80=A2 among the alternative terms for buffer: tabs, panel, window, work space..., i think tabs is a good candidate. Originally i was thinking where emacs used the term =E2=80=9Cbuffer=E2=80=9D in its manual, it could = be replaced by one of the term above depending on context. But i think =E2=80=9Ctabs=E2= =80=9D would work for most. This can be coupled with incorporating the tabbar mode into emacs by default. (done last month in Aquamacs) =E2=80=A2 It doesn't take much work to make these changes. For the ones i suggested in the modernization article, it would take just one single elisp programer few hours to make all the suggested changes. Consider all the little problems here and there that might turn up when actually working into a final product, it might be a total of say, a week's work. =E2=80=A2 Note that in commercial orgs, major change that's a few order of magnitude more difficult has done in response to the changing industry. A good example is Apple computer, in its Motorola chip to PPC in ~1995, Mac OS 9 to OSX in ~2001, and PPC to Intel chip in ~2006. (in the first couple of years of these changes, there are huge resistance from mac communities, organized =E2=80=9COpen Letters=E2=80=9D o= pposition sites to apple, huge number of online complaints, criticisms from Mac magazines etc.) =E2=80=A2 note that emacs's user base has eroded from perhaps more than 50% market share among all editors/IDEs, to today maybe 10%, or perhaps even less than 1% among all professional programers. (professional programer here is defined as those who makes a living by coding; which what we might call =E2=80=9Cinexperienced=E2=80=9D programers such as those= coding in HTML/CSS, PHP, the millions of game scripters, CAD scripters and other niches, scientists and engineers who write code as part of their work. It's a bit hard to define but i think these people may actually be more than 50% of professional programers. Most of these people, if they post to newsgroup (if they knew what's a newsgroup at all), would probably be flamed to death.) =E2=80=A2 Emacs has kill-buffer, which asks users a buffer to kill, with a default suggestion for the current buffer. The Close menu command runs kill-this-buffer, which is what Close menu command is for in almost every application in Mac, Windows, Linux. The kill-this-buffer command closes the current buffer without asking (unless it is not saved, of course). The kill-this-buffer does not have a shortcut by default. The Close command doesn't have a default shortuct. In practice, i think it induced a operation habit to have hundreds of past buffers left open. The problem with leaving buffers is that it makes buffer listing/switching facilities much less useful. This is rather common complaint even among emacs old timers (i myself, being somewhat a classic nerd, adopted wholly emacs's ways and terms in the very beginning, using emacs in pure text terminal only for the first 5 years. However, i do have a habit to always close buffers once i've finished working with it. So, i always did C-k Return and find it too many keystrokes. Only in recent years of elisp study i had workaround with somewhat extensive self-made customization) =E2=80=A2 i do wish to keep gun.emacs.help to be very focused on technical = Q&A and avoid opinions oriented discussions. I enjoy reading gnu.emacs.help that way, and i think comp.emacs can be more open to discussions and opinion oriented posts. What made me reply here was that posts that seems to want to emphasize the emacs ways as better way, which in my opinion, prevents the modernization of emacs. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84