Re: basic question: going back to dired

[Tim X]

"Juanma Barranquero" <lekktu@gmail.com> writes:

>
> Of course there are at least two reasons, other than history, to stick
> with the statu quo: lack of resources, and existing users' resistance.
> :)

I would suggest a third is that as far as I know, there have been no
suggestions for different terms which actually improve the situation. At
best, they make it no worse, but I've seen none that would substantially
improve the situation (not that I persoanlly believe it needs
improvement - but if you accept the premise that many find the current
terminology difficult, which I think is debatable, what terminology is
going to improve the situation and not make things worse or at best,
make no real difference apart from createing a lot of work?).

Change for the sake of change is a waste of resources. If the
terminology is going to be changed to something, it needs to be
something that adds real value and which isn't just a 'dumbing down' to
try and increase popularity. 

for example, I don't think workspace is any real improvement over
buffer. What would you call all those buffers that users never actually
see? Are they workspaces? However, my biggest concern would be that
those new to emacs and trying to learn how to extend it and customise it
are likely not to realise that using a temporary buffer to do some
manipulation/processing of data in the background is one of the more
efficient approaches in emacs. For me at any rate, the concept of a
workspace implies some place where I interactively manipulate
data. rightly or wrongly, for me, a workspace is where I do work and not
necessarily where some elisp may do some work. A recent example of this
is the thread where someone was asking how to write a regexp that would
manipulate a multi-line chunk of text with a heading of Body:. for me,
the most efficient and simplist way to do this wold be to just put the
data in a buffer, possibly narrow it to only include the bit I was
interested in and then process it. A lot simpler than trying to pull it
out with a regexp and then manipulate it as a large string.

the other issue here is the frequency of people who are willing to post
and criticise the terminology as being out of date or misleading or just
inadequate, but who are not prepared to actually do anything about
it. Its easy to rite criticism - actually making things change takes
effort and dedication. If your not prepared to do the work, then I think
people should just be quiet. If you are prepared to do the work, then
just get on with it. If your right, your work will be appreciated and
you may actually improve things. 

tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au