Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> > This seems like a reasonable solution to me. Alternatively perhaps we
> > just need to sell C-x C-f as "open a file or directory" rather than
> > "find a file"?
>
> That would make our initial explanations more complex, and that might
> lead to more confusion than clarity.
>
> I think it is better to explain this wrinkle when the user encounters it,
> not before.
Aren't users encountering that wrinkle first time they open a file?
Observe there are even more wrinkles there to explain: if file does not
exist Emacs creates a new buffer, and if user ment a directory, the
buffer will still be just a plain file not a dir. And what about if
there are some non-existent directories on the way? Emacs asks if user
wants them to be created ... so there are quite a few wrinkles in that
one, not the simplest behaviour to explain anyway :-).
But those are consistent with how other software behaves. The user won't think of a buffer as much as of a not-yet-saved file, but that's also consistent with what emacs does.
Other software would force the directory to be created before opening the file, but that's minor I believe.
Being able to open a directory just like a file, on the other hand, is not usual. Web browsers can do it, but that's because their "files" are almost like directories.
I personally like the ido approach of having different keys for accessing files and directories. Simple operations like listing files or creating a new one are done directly in the ido buffer, no need for dired.
Thibaut