From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: MON KEY Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs learning curve Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:27:07 -0400 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1278792542 10571 80.91.229.12 (10 Jul 2010 20:09:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:09:02 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: levelhalom@gmail.com Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jul 10 22:09:01 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 1OXgM8-000774-An for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 22:09:00 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:33575 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OXgM7-0001sL-FB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:08:59 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=39681 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OXgJH-00089P-6t for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:06:04 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OXfhe-0006Z2-55 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:27:11 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-gw0-f41.google.com ([74.125.83.41]:51491) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OXfhd-0006Yr-Tc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:27:10 -0400 Original-Received: by gwb1 with SMTP id 1so2509178gwb.0 for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:27:08 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.151.6.5 with SMTP id j5mr3690433ybi.67.1278790027136; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:27:07 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.151.98.19 with HTTP; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:27:07 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-Sender-Auth: G54ELtV_UgkOD9uLLfDhy86ZA7A X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) 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:127008 Archived-At: On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:36:46 +0000 Tom wrote: > Eli Zaretskii gnu.org> writes: >> >> Doesn't the manual help discovering what Emacs can do? Why do you >> need to search the Internet when you have most of the stuff right >> under your fingertips? > > Using established terminology would help here. Which established terminology the _new_ stuff or the _old_ stuff that the new stuff stands upon? See DLW email below. > Is there a compelling reason to still use yank/kill, instead of copy/cut/paste? Yes, b/c it is an established standing convention for at least 30 yrs. One that did much to establesh 'modern' GUI's Lisa/Nextstep/x11 etc. > Why do we call the cursor the point? And so on. See DLW email below. > These relics of old terminology should be updated to the accepted modern > variants to make the documentation is more accessible for emacs newbies. I truly believe that w/re the manual, it would be exceedingly beneficial if it did a better job indicating and celebrating the long history of both Emacs and the various lisp dialects in general. I also believe that where it does so already it could do better to avoid certain outmoded political perspectives. Which is to say GNU won -- part of being a good winner is knowing how to honor those defeated). New and old Emacs users alike should be reminded from whence we came. It should be a source of pride and a mark of prestige that Emacs has endured the test of time. Following from the file named: mit/extract/nzwei/info.zwei as extracted from the archive at: http://www.unlambda.com/download/mit/mit-20041117.tar.gz :SEE (URL `http://www.unlambda.com/lisp/mit.page') It is worth noting that the comparison made below between Emacs and Zwei is w/re to what were already circa Summer 1980 divergent implementations of _established_ convention. ,---- | Date: 19 JUL 1980 0411-EDT | From: DLW at MIT-AI (Daniel L. Weinreb) | Subject: Differences between ZWEI and EMACS | To: INFO-ZWEI at MIT-AI | | There is a subtle difference between ZWEI and EMACS that many people | probably don't know about: while EMACS has a "mark PDL", ZWEI has a | "point PDL". The EMACS mark is the same as the top of the mark PDL, | but the ZWEI mark has nothing to do with the point PDL. The reason for | this was so that setting the mark for purposes of defining a region | would not interfere with the saved buffer pointers on the PDL; that | always bothered me in EMACS and I considered the ZWEI method an | improvement. | | However, it is not fully compatible with EMACS. One difference that | may cause some users trouble is that certain commands which, in EMACS, | set the mark, and thus push on the mark PDL, do not affect the ZWEI | point PDL. In particular, the "Yank" and "Insert Buffer" commands in | ZWEI set the mark to the other end of the inserted region, but do not | affect the point PDL. In EMACS, you can get to the other side of | the inserted text either by swapping point and mark (with c-X c-X) | or by popping the mark PDL (c-Space or c-@); in ZWEI only the | former works. | | Another difference between EMACS and ZWEI is that in ZWEI, the region | either "exists" or "does not exist"; there is no such concept in EMACS. | When the region exists, it is underlined; when it doesn't exist, the | underlining goes away. The main point of this is to keep the | underlining from being visually distracting when the user is not | concerned about the region. It also keeps region-munging commands | (such as Uppercase Region or Fill Region) from happening unexpectedly | if your fingers slip. Usually the region is created when you set the | mark, and usually it goes away when you give any command that does | something more complex than moving the point; the mouse can also create | the region. But even when the region does not exist, the mark is still | there, albeit invisibly as in EMACS. If you want to turn on the region | without affecting the current position of mark, you can use c-X c-X, | which is what some people usually use in EMACS to find out where the | mark is. | | Also, in a few special cases, some commands that refer to the region | will still work even if the region does not exist. In particular, the | Kill Region (c-W) command will work immediately following a yanking | command (such as c-Y), so that you can kill what you just yanked if you | don't like it. `---- -- /s_P\