Re: Apologia for bzr

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Eric S. Raymond <address@hidden> wrote:

Richard Stallman <address@hidden>:

> But even though we did not do anything wrong, it is unfortunate for us
> nonetheless.  If it is possible to change Emacs to use some standard
> modern terms instead of its current terms, it might be worth doing,
> even if it means a series of renaming spread over a period of years.

Mostly there *aren't* any "standard modern terms", because there are
no other editors in which there is so much decoupling between the
local equivalents of our core concepts that they need to be described
separately.

There's a parallel with git jargon here...

It is very different in one way. An editor is a tool you start with. It should be convenient for everyone. Beginners may face a high complexity and different terms (and keyboard shortcuts) for rather familiar commands makes it much more difficult.

The difference might seem small, but since it raises complexity for beginners it waists time for them. Human beings (not even the best) are not very good at logical things. Complexity comes at a cost because of our limited working memory. (Which is just a few pieces, mostly somewhere between 5 to 12. If I may simplify a bit.)