Re: Subwindow terminology

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>]

martin rudalics writes:

 > Window trees are described in terms of four well known concepts - root
 > window, parent window, child window and subwindow.

In all contexts other than Emacs, subwindow and descendant window (or
perhaps child window) are synonymous.  Breaking that connection is
begging for misunderstanding.

 > I didn't use the terms "ancestor" and "descendant" because these
 > would introduce a genealogical connotation that doesn't exist.

Does anyone ever actually think in genealogical terms?  I'm shocked
that you think it matters.  (That doesn't mean it doesn't matter, of
course, but I haven't seen any rationale posted for why it does and am
unable to imagine one myself.)  Does anybody *ever* care about
anything except in which of the visible windows output will appear
(and similar static questions about the current window configuration)?

And at the Lisp level, only leaf windows are actually accessible as
far as I know.  Are there any Lisp functions that operate on parent
windows, other than those that create or destroy children?