RE: Emacs learning curve

[Drew Adams]

> Whoever chose the terms split-window-horizontally and
> split-window-vertically did a suboptimal job, because they
> mean different things to different people,

Not in English, they don't.  I explained this.

That people might not read English well or think about the names well is
understandable.  That people get confused about this is also understandable.
Lots of people even confuse horizontal with vertical, or left with right,
believe it or not!  That's life.

But in English, if you split something horizontally then the split line runs
horizontally, and the resulting pieces are situated one above the other, stacked
vertically.  Sorry, but this is _not_ a matter of opinion.  It is a matter of
geometry/space/topology.  (Please, no red-herring rejoinders about Klein bottles
or Moebius strips.)

> and using ambiguous terms or expressions must be avoided.

We do agree - no doubt all of us.

The devil is in the details, however.  Blanket statements like that do not help.
Pick a concrete term that you think is ambiguous and discuss it.  Then something
might come of it.

> The fact that this sub-topic arised is proof of the problematic
> nature of those terms.

Nonsense.  It might be proof that some readers/users are not super-proficient in
English.  And I would agree that an Emacs user should not need to be _super_
proficient in English.  But there is nothing incorrect or ambiguous about the
term `split-window-horizontally'.

As I said, scroll up/down is a different matter, because of the relative nature
(point of view).  Call that one an arbitrary choice, if you like.  Consider it a
bad choice, if you like.  It remains unimportant in the grand scale of Emacs
deficiencies.

You might better complain that `C-x 2' and `C-x 3' are not such great bindings
for splitting windows.  Or that they should be reversed, for some reason.  All
of this is inconsequential.

> And usage of down/up on Emacs (as for scrolling) contradicts current
> stablished practice.

Maybe you mean that in the "established practice" when you hit the PageDown key
you move up the page, not down (so the page moves down)?  It doesn't in the
applications that I use outside Emacs, but I'm willing to suspend doubt and take
your word for it.

Or maybe you just mean that the command `scroll-up-command' moves the opposite
way from the established notion of upward movement.  Is that it - the PageDown
key does the right thing in Emacs, but its command is called
`scroll-up-command'?  OK, I agree that we might better have called it
`page-down-command'.

Would it help attract new users if we renamed it `page-down-command'?  Is that
your argument?  For things like scrolling it really _does not matter_ that
Emacs's `up' in the command name might be the down of "established practice".
It really doesn't.

Unless you are programming with Emacs Lisp or you invoke `scroll-up' via `M-x'
you will never come across the command name `scroll-up-command'.

Well, you will see it in the doc, if you look for it, but in that case the
explanation is unambiguous and there should be zero difficulty understanding.
The doc does speak in terms of scrolling upward but it says that the _text_ is
scrolled upward, which it is.  It is the view port that moves downward, _not_
the page.  The window moves down the page.

The doc tries to explain the behavior but also relate it to the command name.
You (someone) would surely complain if the name were `scroll-up-command' but the
doc spoke only in terms of the window moving downward.

You could argue that it is the (keyboard) key name PageDown that is misnamed,
because the page itself (the text) moves up, not down.  Perhaps we should lobby
keyboard manufacturers to change the name to WindowDown or to PageUp?

Do you see that arguing about this is like arguing about how many angels fit on
the head of a pin?  The window moves down or the page moves up - take your pick.
And it doesn't matter a lot what we call the movement command, as long as we are
consistent. 

Arguing that Emacs is perverse and out of step with "established practice" on
the basis of an example such as scrolling orientation is truly making a mountain
out of an extinct mole hill that has since eroded to be 100% flat.

> Yes, there is a reasoning for doing what Emacs
> does, but the issue is that it is contrary to the 
> expectations of almost anybody who learned to use computers
> on the last 20 years.

Nonsense - no, I shouldn't say that.  It depends what you mean.  Be specific.

If you mean that the command name `scroll-up-command' is contrary to user
expectations, then I would indeed say, "Nonsense".  No user has a great
expectation about a command named `scroll-up-command', nor does anyone care.
Most users of most editors - including Emacs - do not invoke scroll commands by
name.

Now suppose that hitting the down arrow (called `down', BTW) moved the cursor up
instead of down.  Provided that the user's mental model for this key is for
cursor movement, that would indeed be perverse.

On the other hand, if the command bound to `down' were called `buffer-up'
instead of `next-line', and if it made sense for Emacs users to have a mental
model of the arrow keys as scrolling the buffer under the cursor instead of
moving the cursor within the buffer, then the arrow direction would not fit the
mental model of upward (buffer) movement.  That would be perverse.

Naming the down arrow `up' would also be downright perverse (but that too would
not have a lot of impact).

Perversion in this regard means doing something that is illogical.  Doing
something that might not correspond to "established practice" is not necessarily
perverse.  It might or might not be perverse.

Would you say that someone who speaks only Catalan is perverse, because Chinese
is the current "established practice" worldwide, or because Spanish is the
"established practice" in Spain?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Pick a word that you think is "naturally" feminine in Spanish.  See if it is
feminine in French or German.  You might be surprised at the perversion you will
find.  And some other languages can find even the notion of word gender
unnecessary, arbitrary, illogical, or perverse.

Maybe Emacs is a foreign language to "almost anybody who learned to use
computers on the last 20 years".  It still gets its tourists, though, oddly
enough.  And yes, some of those tourists do COMPLAIN LOUDLY that everything is
NOT LIKE IT IS BACK HOME IN KANSAS AND IT SHOULD BE - NOW!  Maybe someday it
will be.  On n'arrete pas le progres.

> Terms must convey meaning to users, not confuse them.

A stitch in time saves nine.  Early to bed and early to rise makes a man
healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Platitudes do not advance the schmilblick, I'm afraid.