From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: "'Miles Bader'" <miles@gnu.org>, <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
Subject: RE: Rename `mini-' options
Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 01:24:44 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <000001c9d5ff$c53ebe10$0200a8c0@us.oracle.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87r5yp7c74.fsf@catnip.gol.com>
> For better or worse, Emacs traditionally distinguishes "the
> minibuffer" from "the echo area", and resize-mini-windows
> applies to both. So a name which captures this subtlety
> is arguably better than one which lies
> a bit for the sake of convenient document searching.
And the name `resize-mini-windows' captures this subtlety just how? Is it
because it cleverly doesn't mention _either_ the minibuffer or the echo area?
That's supposed to help somehow?
You heard it from user Deniz: "Unless I had read your post I never would have
guessed `resize-mini-windows' deals with the minibuffer at all." Case closed.
(Or it should be.) Never would have guessed at all! Even with the name looking
us in the face - let alone the problem of finding that name in the first place.
As I said, use something like `minibuffer-echo-area-resize', if you're concerned
about "capturing the subtlety" that this option applies to both. I have no
problem with that. There's no need to "lie a bit".
Finding options and functions by name is important, and that is not just about
searching the doc. This is why `apropos' works as well as it does - conventional
naming.
> The variable in question _is_ existing practice -- it was introduced
> almost a decade ago, in Emacs 21.
There are lots of things introduced a while ago that could still merit
improvement.
The more important point is that this is an _exception_ to the rest of the
"existing practice". No where else does `mini-' occur. And it remains
unexplained, undocumented.
This is just a bug, no matter how long ago it was introduced. And in the grand
scheme of Emacs terminology, Emacs 21 is a relative newcomer. The terminology of
`minibuffer' and `echo area' have been with us since Day 1.
I apologize for not catching this bug sooner. (I don't use such resizing, myself
- I use a standalone minibuffer frame, with my own resizing code for that.)
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-05-16 8:24 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-05-16 1:47 Rename `mini-' options Davis Herring
2009-05-16 2:11 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-16 2:22 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-05-16 2:32 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-16 3:09 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-05-16 4:20 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-16 10:04 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-05-16 19:20 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-16 19:47 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-05-16 6:43 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-05-16 7:13 ` Miles Bader
2009-05-16 8:24 ` Drew Adams [this message]
2009-05-16 9:21 ` Miles Bader
2009-05-16 19:21 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-17 1:59 ` Miles Bader
2009-05-16 9:18 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-05-17 4:10 ` Stefan Monnier
[not found] <AcnVoAMCDVZ2cc3/RpaKtCkusD8ZRg==>
2009-05-15 20:59 ` Drew Adams
2009-05-16 0:12 ` Deniz Dogan
2009-05-16 0:21 ` Drew Adams
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