From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: ams@kemisten.nu (Alfred M. Szmidt) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: The minibuffer vs. Dialog Boxes (Re: Making XEmacs be more up-to-date) Date: 21 Apr 2002 13:37:22 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1019389164 17370 127.0.0.1 (21 Apr 2002 11:39:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 11:39:24 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Michael Toomim , Eli Zaretskii , bradym@balestra.org, xemacs-design@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 16zFgh-0004W3-00 for ; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 13:39:23 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 16zFgt-0004KO-00 for ; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 13:39:35 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 16zFgU-00018K-00; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 07:39:10 -0400 Original-Received: from lgh163a.kemisten.nu ([212.32.172.173]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 16zFev-000151-00 for ; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 07:37:33 -0400 Original-Received: from ams by lgh163a.kemisten.nu with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 16zFek-0001S5-00; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 13:37:22 +0200 Original-To: Terje Bless In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 26 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2.50 Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:2924 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:2924 * Terje Bless writes: > You choose your level of abstraction based on the vocabulary of your > audience. We aren't talking about people interested in "biology" > here; we're talking about a patient seeing a doctor. Talking about > the implementation and demanding familiarity with terminology is > fine for budding Emacs _developers_, but it's (IMO) inappropriate > for people who merely want to /use/ Emacs to perform some task. If > my doctor told me I had an inflamed pharynx I wouldn't know what the > hell he was talking about. A sore throat OTOH is perfectly > understandable and is probably accurate _enough_ under the > circumstances. Since when do you choose your level of abstraction based on the vocabulary of your audience? You choose if based on what makes sense. In our case, a buffer makes a perfectly good choice for a word, as you are not really opening a file, you are opening a temporary file, a buffer. I really don't see what this has to do with developers, what about people that have just /used/ Emacs since a decade back? Or people that have /used/ it for a couple of years? A lot of old timers would get pretty confused if you change the terminology. And the glossary in the Emacs manual is something that new users should read. I also think that the tutorial describes what a buffer is in words that are suiting new users. Instead of changing the terminology why not improve the definition of it so that it is easier to understand. -- Alfred M. Szmidt