Re: Etymology of `visiting' files

[Robert Thorpe]

Udyant Wig <udyant@rudiments.goosenet.in> writes:

> What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'?
>
> From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp
> manuals, I understand the process the verb names.  However, I wanted to
> find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own
> expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that
> would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems.

I expect it's mnemonic.  On early versions of Emacs before GNU Emacs
using multiple buffers was considered advanced.  Emacs opened in a
"Main" buffer.  The keybinding C-x C-v ("visit-file") visited a file in
that buffer.  The keybinding C-x C-f ("find-file") visited a file in a
new buffer.

See pages 71 & 83 of this document from 1981.

http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/mit_emacs_170_teco_1220/01/info/emacs.guide.html
BR,
Robert Thorpe