emacs-devel
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Emacs learning curve


From: Stephen J. Turnbull
Subject: Re: Emacs learning curve
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:58:43 +0900

Óscar Fuentes writes:

 > No, I'm not missing the point at all. Whoever chose the terms
 > split-window-horizontally and split-window-vertically did a suboptimal
 > job, because they mean different things to different people, and using
 > ambiguous terms or expressions must be avoided. The fact that this
 > sub-topic arised is proof of the problematic nature of those terms.

I have to side with Drew here.  The names are not ambiguous in
English, at least not to native speakers of my dialect interpreting
the hyphenated symbols as English phrases.  The problem is that even
those who speak my dialect may choose to interpret them in other ways,
because of the various odd things that happen in naming.  Probably the
most frequent source of confusion is glossing the symbol name as
"windows arrayed horizontally" (ie, what Drew referred to as the
result of the command).  I feel the pull of that interpretation
myself, even though I can't do an up-down inversion and get myself to
interpret the results of "split window horizontally" as a horizontal
array of windows.  (Sorry about that contuse mass of words, but
precision is necessary here.)

 > And usage of down/up on Emacs (as for scrolling) contradicts current
 > stablished practice. 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.
 > 
 > Terms must convey meaning to users, not confuse them.

Ah, but *which* users?  Note that a natural vocabulary for new and/or
non-programmer users is a picture of the result.  A sensible way to
handle this problem would be to have an icon like "[][]" next to the
English-ized function name "Split selected window vertically" in the
menus, and a large version of the icon for use in toolbars.  (It
probably would almost never be used in the top-level toolbar, but I
can imagine a window-configuration-mode with a toolbar containing such
icons.)

OTOH, changing the terms used by long-time users would cause great
confusion and annoyance.  I don't think you can win this argument if
you target the names of commands.  It would be much easier to get
support if you create such a pictorial vocabulary for use by new users
and non-programmers.  Bonus points for making it possible to create a
"keyboard macro" using only the mouse, translate it to Lisp, and
associate the pictures with the appropriate Lisp commands.  And of
course much of the relevant vocabulary will already be present in
collections of icons provided by GNOME et al.






reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]