Re: Terminology in multi-tty primitives

[Richard M Stallman]

     . Sometimes we use "tty", as in `suspend-tty' and
       `make-frame-on-tty', and sometimes "terminal", as in
       `delete-terminal'.

These examples suggest the distinction that `terminal' refers
to any kind of terminal (including X), whereas `tty' implies that
the function applies only to text terminals.

    But there's no delete-tty or suspend-terminal.

Here's how it appears to me.  The function to delete works on any kind
of terminal, so its name says "terminal".  The function to suspend
works only on ttys, so its name says "tty".

I am not sure that those facts are accurate, but if they are, the
names make sense.

So the current usage is consistent.  However, we don't have to
make this distinction.   We could rename `tty' to `terminal'
in these function names, and that would also be consistent.

     . `terminal-name' returns the name of the _terminal_device_, such
       as "/dev/tty", while a terminal object itself does not really
       have a name.

Perhaps `terminal-device' would be a clearer name for that.

     . `get-device-terminal' accepts not only a device name (like
       "/dev/tty" or "foo:0.0"), as its name might suggest, but also a
       frame or a terminal.

It could be called `get-terminal' by analogy with `get-buffer'.

     . Doc strings of several functions use the term "terminal id", but
       the functions accept a _terminal_object_, not an ID.  Since a
       terminal has an integer ID associated with it
       (cf. `get-device-terminal's return value), a user could easily be
       confused to think that we mean that integer identifier.

The term "ID" is misleading here, and should be changed.

In the manual I see

    +  Emacs represents each terminal on which it displays frames as a
    +special @dfn{terminal object} data type, see @ref{Terminal Type}.  The
    +terminal object has a unique integer identifier and the following
    +attributes:

The terminal does have a unique integer identifier, but is this useful
to mention here?  Do users ever use it?  If not, we may as well
leave it unmentioned.