Re: "Point" vs. "cursor" in documentation

[Jean-Christophe Helary <brandelune@gmail.com>]

> On Jul 4, 2018, at 11:39, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> 
>> When do we use point over cursor, and vice versa, in documentation?
> 
> "Point" is concerned about where operations will happen, whereas
> "cursor" is concerned about where the thingy will be drawn on screen.
> The cursor only moves when the display gets refreshed (i.e. once per
> command, more or less), whereas point can be modified by lots of
> intermediate operations, so it can change thousands of times within
> a single command.

Which is the reason why "save-excursion" is used:

Introduction, 3.10

"In Emacs, a function frequently moves point as part of its internal workings even though a user would not expect this. For example, count-lines-region moves point. To prevent the user from being bothered by jumps that are both unexpected and (from the user’s point of view) unnecessary, save-excursion is often used to keep point in the location expected by the user. The use of save-excursion is good housekeeping."


Jean-Christophe Helary
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http://mac4translators.blogspot.com @brandelune