From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Toby Cubitt Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Apologia for bzr Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2014 15:21:17 +0000 Message-ID: <20140103152117.GA16679@c3po> References: Reply-To: Toby Cubitt NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1388762507 11235 80.91.229.3 (3 Jan 2014 15:21:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2014 15:21:47 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jan 03 16:21:54 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Vz6ZN-0005xV-Fi for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Jan 2014 16:21:53 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50318 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vz6ZN-0005ye-0Z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:21:53 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:59261) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vz6ZF-0005ta-Ut for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:21:50 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vz6Z9-0002ks-Iv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:21:45 -0500 Original-Received: from sanddollar.geekisp.com ([216.168.135.167]:27461) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vz6Z9-0002kd-FV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:21:39 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 28912 invoked by uid 1003); 3 Jan 2014 15:21:35 -0000 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.geekisp.com [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.geekisp.com (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:21:31 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-PGP-Key: http://www.dr-qubit.org/gpg-toby-pub.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.22 (2013-10-16) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.11 (Ladyburn) X-Primary-Address: toby@dr-qubit.org X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: OpenBSD 4.x-5.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 216.168.135.167 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:167177 Archived-At: On Fri, Jan 03, 2014 at 09:37:16AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > This is the Emacs mailing list I'm on, right? Emacs of "find" a file to > open it, files live in "buffers", "windows" aren't windows but "frames" > are, "kill" to cut and "yank" to paste fame? ;-) > > Emacs did these things first, and our terminology came first. If you > wish to complain about the use of incompatible terminology by other > systems inconvenient, you need to send your complaints to their > developers. Do I really need to put a humour disclaimer after ever attempt at levity? I thought the emoticon would be sufficient indication, but apparently not . OK, since you seem to need one, here you go: The above comment is a joke. I'm well aware of the history of Emacs and its terminology, I don't have a problem with it, I'm not advocating changing it, I don't think you or anyone else is to blame because rest of the world chose to use different terminology, nor do I feel any need to complain to developers of other software about that choice. > The same could be said of most unix man pages. Good man pages aren't > supposed to be tutorials. > > That's true. That's the job of a real manual. > Still, man pages should be comprehensible. That's true. Personally, I find them comprehensible. If someone else finds them hard to understand, perhaps they could help to improve them? After all, they're released under a free software license. For better or worse, git and its sometimes idiosyncratic interface is probably here to stay. Best wishes, Toby -- Dr T. S. Cubitt Royal Society University Research Fellow and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge Centre for Quantum Information DAMTP, University of Cambridge email: tsc25@cantab.net web: www.dr-qubit.org