On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 12:50 AM, David Kastrup wrote: > Lennart Borgman writes: > > > On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:32 PM, Daniel Colascione > wrote: > > > >> On 01/06/2014 12:27 PM, Richard Stallman wrote: > >> > >>> Conceivably we could rename "window" to "pane" and "frame" to "window". > >>> I think the two renamings would have to be done in two different > releases, > >>> perhaps a year or two apart. > >>> > >> > >> I don't think we could pull off this renaming. At least on the lisp > level, > >> we would have to maintain compatibility aliases effectively forever, > >> doubling the number of lisp symbols dealing with these concepts. One > does > >> not simply rename a function that's been in constant use for 20 years. > >> Sure, you might argue, we could change the labels we assign these > concepts > >> in the UI and leave lisp alone, but the lisp symbols are too closely > tied > >> to the UI (with respect to keybindings and M-x) to change the two > >> independently. > >> > >> The best thing we can do is explain in the tutorial and manual the > >> correspondence between Emacs and common terms. > >> > > > > We are talking about the user level. Interactive function names can be > > duplicated. > > That's a bad idea since a fundamental part of the "interactive" user > interface is completion, so if you are trying to find some > functionality, getting two names in the set of completions that look > like they might do different things because of using different terms, > this will not help the user figuring out what to do. > > There are trade offs, but it is bad logic to say it is a bad idea just because of that of course.