From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: Emacs learning curve Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:17:08 -0700 Message-ID: <2256C17F740A425884AD551DE7758056@us.oracle.com> References: <4C3B6A8A.80105@gmx.de> <87wrt0e81n.fsf@telefonica.net><62E9699C07054418AB66F9C5FCB54E5C@us.oracle.com><87sk3oe3la.fsf@telefonica.net><1154D96E7D2F401D849266F359E44BB9@us.oracle.com> <87ocecdzou.fsf@telefonica.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1278983863 16036 80.91.229.12 (13 Jul 2010 01:17:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:17:43 +0000 (UTC) To: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?'=D3scar_Fuentes'?=" , Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 13 03:17:40 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYU7u-0003NM-N8 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:17:39 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:48602 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYU7t-0001Eg-Vs for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:17:37 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=33864 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYU7o-0001EZ-Jc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:17:34 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYU7m-0006FS-V6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:17:32 -0400 Original-Received: from rcsinet10.oracle.com ([148.87.113.121]:41980) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYU7m-0006FI-M1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:17:30 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com (acsinet15.oracle.com [141.146.126.227]) by rcsinet10.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.2) with ESMTP id o6D1HRpe004722 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:17:29 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt354.oracle.com (acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.1) with ESMTP id o6D0JOHw025715; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:17:26 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt001.oracle.com by acsmt354.oracle.com with ESMTP id 399477081278983830; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:17:10 -0700 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/141.144.224.5) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:17:10 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-reply-to: <87ocecdzou.fsf@telefonica.net> Thread-Index: AcsiHYiEGQyCZoXyQ+etukw0s/Jt5AAAU/lQ X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5931 X-Source-IP: acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154] X-Auth-Type: Internal IP X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090208.4C3BBEA7.010A:SCFMA4539814,ss=1,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:127133 Archived-At: > Whoever chose the terms split-window-horizontally and > split-window-vertically did a suboptimal job, because they > mean different things to different people, Not in English, they don't. I explained this. That people might not read English well or think about the names well is understandable. That people get confused about this is also understandable. Lots of people even confuse horizontal with vertical, or left with right, believe it or not! That's life. But in English, if you split something horizontally then the split line runs horizontally, and the resulting pieces are situated one above the other, stacked vertically. Sorry, but this is _not_ a matter of opinion. It is a matter of geometry/space/topology. (Please, no red-herring rejoinders about Klein bottles or Moebius strips.) > and using ambiguous terms or expressions must be avoided. We do agree - no doubt all of us. The devil is in the details, however. Blanket statements like that do not help. Pick a concrete term that you think is ambiguous and discuss it. Then something might come of it. > The fact that this sub-topic arised is proof of the problematic > nature of those terms. Nonsense. It might be proof that some readers/users are not super-proficient in English. And I would agree that an Emacs user should not need to be _super_ proficient in English. But there is nothing incorrect or ambiguous about the term `split-window-horizontally'. As I said, scroll up/down is a different matter, because of the relative nature (point of view). Call that one an arbitrary choice, if you like. Consider it a bad choice, if you like. It remains unimportant in the grand scale of Emacs deficiencies. You might better complain that `C-x 2' and `C-x 3' are not such great bindings for splitting windows. Or that they should be reversed, for some reason. All of this is inconsequential. > And usage of down/up on Emacs (as for scrolling) contradicts current > stablished practice. Maybe you mean that in the "established practice" when you hit the PageDown key you move up the page, not down (so the page moves down)? It doesn't in the applications that I use outside Emacs, but I'm willing to suspend doubt and take your word for it. Or maybe you just mean that the command `scroll-up-command' moves the opposite way from the established notion of upward movement. Is that it - the PageDown key does the right thing in Emacs, but its command is called `scroll-up-command'? OK, I agree that we might better have called it `page-down-command'. Would it help attract new users if we renamed it `page-down-command'? Is that your argument? For things like scrolling it really _does not matter_ that Emacs's `up' in the command name might be the down of "established practice". It really doesn't. Unless you are programming with Emacs Lisp or you invoke `scroll-up' via `M-x' you will never come across the command name `scroll-up-command'. Well, you will see it in the doc, if you look for it, but in that case the explanation is unambiguous and there should be zero difficulty understanding. The doc does speak in terms of scrolling upward but it says that the _text_ is scrolled upward, which it is. It is the view port that moves downward, _not_ the page. The window moves down the page. The doc tries to explain the behavior but also relate it to the command name. You (someone) would surely complain if the name were `scroll-up-command' but the doc spoke only in terms of the window moving downward. You could argue that it is the (keyboard) key name PageDown that is misnamed, because the page itself (the text) moves up, not down. Perhaps we should lobby keyboard manufacturers to change the name to WindowDown or to PageUp? Do you see that arguing about this is like arguing about how many angels fit on the head of a pin? The window moves down or the page moves up - take your pick. And it doesn't matter a lot what we call the movement command, as long as we are consistent. Arguing that Emacs is perverse and out of step with "established practice" on the basis of an example such as scrolling orientation is truly making a mountain out of an extinct mole hill that has since eroded to be 100% flat. > Yes, there is a reasoning for doing what Emacs > does, but the issue is that it is contrary to the > expectations of almost anybody who learned to use computers > on the last 20 years. Nonsense - no, I shouldn't say that. It depends what you mean. Be specific. If you mean that the command name `scroll-up-command' is contrary to user expectations, then I would indeed say, "Nonsense". No user has a great expectation about a command named `scroll-up-command', nor does anyone care. Most users of most editors - including Emacs - do not invoke scroll commands by name. Now suppose that hitting the down arrow (called `down', BTW) moved the cursor up instead of down. Provided that the user's mental model for this key is for cursor movement, that would indeed be perverse. On the other hand, if the command bound to `down' were called `buffer-up' instead of `next-line', and if it made sense for Emacs users to have a mental model of the arrow keys as scrolling the buffer under the cursor instead of moving the cursor within the buffer, then the arrow direction would not fit the mental model of upward (buffer) movement. That would be perverse. Naming the down arrow `up' would also be downright perverse (but that too would not have a lot of impact). Perversion in this regard means doing something that is illogical. Doing something that might not correspond to "established practice" is not necessarily perverse. It might or might not be perverse. Would you say that someone who speaks only Catalan is perverse, because Chinese is the current "established practice" worldwide, or because Spanish is the "established practice" in Spain? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers Pick a word that you think is "naturally" feminine in Spanish. See if it is feminine in French or German. You might be surprised at the perversion you will find. And some other languages can find even the notion of word gender unnecessary, arbitrary, illogical, or perverse. Maybe Emacs is a foreign language to "almost anybody who learned to use computers on the last 20 years". It still gets its tourists, though, oddly enough. And yes, some of those tourists do COMPLAIN LOUDLY that everything is NOT LIKE IT IS BACK HOME IN KANSAS AND IT SHOULD BE - NOW! Maybe someday it will be. On n'arrete pas le progres. > Terms must convey meaning to users, not confuse them. A stitch in time saves nine. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Platitudes do not advance the schmilblick, I'm afraid.