Re: Rename "window" to "pane" (after Emacs 27)

[Sam Steingold <sds@gnu.org>]

> * Drew Adams <qerj.nqnzf@benpyr.pbz> [2020-04-01 07:56:31 -0700]:
>
>> > I have nothing in principle against renaming "window" to "pane", but
>> > it would be a big transient.  Before doing that, I think we should
>> > poll the users to see what they think about it.
>> 
>> How would we go about polling the users?
>> 
>> This is indeed a big undertaking, seeing as there is 50.000+ instances
>> of "window" in the tree to consider.  I have made a few false starts,
>> but it's hard to decide the best way to start with such a big task.
>> I'm currently bogged down with real world commitments and dropped the
>> ball a bit here, but if there is interest I might be able to take
>> another stab at it when things clear up.
>
> IMHO (one user), not worth it.  And not really needed.

+1

> And would we then rename "frame" to "window", which
> would engender further confusion, especially wrt
> older versions and all of the existing Emacs
> collateral outside Emacs proper?

Exactly!

So it will take us 2-3 releases to rename "window" to "pane"
and then another 2-3 releases to rename "frame" to "window".

Thus, 10 years from now we will be in compliance with the
common terminology introduced in 1990-ies.

By then it is quite possible that the whole "window manager"
paradigm will be obsolete as more and more computing is done
on mobile devices with full-screen-only windows, where the
current Emacs terminology makes more sense.

So... how much effort are we willing to expend on this cosmetic change?
Don't we have something better to do with our time?


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