Re: Slightly OT: Where are keycodes defined for emacs -nw in X-Windows?

[Barry Margolin <barry.margolin@level3.com>]

In article <0lflnb.16.ln@acm.acm>, Alan Mackenzie <none@example.invalid> wrote:
>So, one can store default values of program "resources";  but still no
>sentence which has "resource" as the subject and "is" as the verb.  I
>think "resource" is the X11 term for what sensible programs call
>"settings" or "options" (or "customizable variables" ;-) and patronising
>programs call "preferences".  It would be nice to be told, though, rather
>than having to pick it up osmotically.
>
>Why must the English language be so misused?  A "resource" is something
>one can utilise productively and which it's good to have a lot of, like
>money or disk space or agricultural land, or manufacturing plants.  What
>was wrong with the word "setting"?

I think Apple may have introduced the use of the word "resource" for this
type of thing being used with GUI systems, but I wouldn't be surprised if
it goes back to Xerox.  All Macintosh files have a separate "resource fork"
that contains structured data that goes along with the application data.
Some of these resources are just settings, but other resources are used to
hold messages, dialogue layouts, etc.

I think the X designers envisioned that its resources might also get more
general use than just parameter settings, so they copied the more general
term.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com
Level(3), Woburn, MA
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