Re: Change terminology to better align users’ experience with modern GUIs

[Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu>]

tomas wrote:

> Emacs has a working and dedicated community.
> If you just enter through the door and say
> "Hello, everybody: how about we change all
> names of things, like, now?"... how do you
> think people will react?

Wait, I think I know the answer to this
question! It is "exactly in the way they
reacted", yes?

> Emacs jargon, evolved over a long time (few
> software packages in productive usage can
> look back on thirty years of history)
> definitely poses a barrier to entry
> for newcomers.

We have heard many versions of this tale,
namely that Emacs is difficult to learn, and
difficult to use, and this scares new users
away; and if those were only more easy to do,
more people would!

I don't know how much truth there is to any of
that, to be honest.

And, unless I'm brained damaged by too much
Emacs, there isn't that much "Emacs jargon",
is it?

> So a good strategy, if you're really hot &
> willing to change things would be to grab the
> documentation, and perhaps write a companion
> to the documentation "Glossary" (let's call
> it "Anti-Glossary" which translates "current"
> terms into the Emacs terminology. So someone
> searching for "window", "pane", "cursor",
> etc. has a chance to hit on the
> relevant documentation.

Well, one can do that for sure, but it comes
down to a policy decision. I can't say I care
if there is a terminology mismatch from the
GUI world to the Emacs ditto, but in general,
obviously it is good to strive at a unified
terminology, while it can be done practically
(perhaps some workaround must be put in place,
so not to break code already written but not
maintained, code which is outside of the core
Emacs binary).

> P.S: Sorry if this mail comes across as
> somewhat... condescending. This is not my
> intention at all! If that's the case, it is
> more due to my inability to put things
> shortly and clearly.

Nah, stop it.

> Sorry for that.

It's OK.

-- 
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