help-gnu-emacs
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

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

Re: basic question: going back to dired


From: Nikolaj Schumacher
Subject: Re: basic question: going back to dired
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:50:51 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1 (gnu/linux)

Xah <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think its a good idea to teach or insist that people adopt
> emacs's terminologies.

I don't think its a good idea to teach or insist that people learn
French before going to Paris.  French is a language that has been
adopted by France in the 1530s when there really weren't any other other
languages around, except big mainframe languages like Latin.  In the
20th century English developed as a

> The reason emacs uses the technical terminologies throughout is
> because when emacs started in the 1980s, there really isn't any other
> text editors or even software applications. And, emacs users are all
> computer scientists and programers.

I think it's a ridiculous idea to teach someone English before going to
Paris.  Of course English is spoken pretty much everywhere in the world,
and it would arguably easier to stay in Paris if the




>
> In particular, the term buffer is unsuitable and outdated. See the
> following argument:
>
> ----------------------------
>
> Q: The Terminology “buffer” and “keybinding” is good as they are.
>
> A:
> The terminology “buffer” or “keybinding”, are technical terms having
> to do with software programing. The term “keybinding” refers to the
> association of a keystroke with a command in a technical, software
> application programing context. That is to say, a programer “bind” a
> keystroke event to a command in a software application. The term
> “buffer” refers to a abstract, temporary area for storing data, in the
> context of programing or computer science.
>
> These terms are irrelevant to the users of a software application.
>
> As a user of a text editor, he works with files. The terms “opened
> file” or “untitled file” are more appropriate than “buffer”. Since
> emacs is also used for many things beside reading files or writing to
> files, for example, file management, ftp/sftp, shell, email, irc etc.,
> the proper term can be “panel”, “window”, or “work area”. (All modern
> editors and IDEs use these terms, even though they are all buffers
> too)
>
> And, the term “keyboard shortcut” refers to typing of a key-
> combination to activate a command. It is also more appropriate than
> “binding” or “keybinding”.
>
> Although concepts like “buffer” and “keybinding” are seemingly
> interchangeable with “panel” or “keyboard shortcut”, but their
> contexts set them apart. This is why in all modern software
> application's user documentations, terms like “buffer” or “keybinding”
> are not to be seen but “windows, panes, tabs, workspace, and keyboard
> shortcuts”.
>
> The reason emacs uses the technical terminologies throughout is
> because when emacs started in the 1980s, there really isn't any other
> text editors or even software applications. And, emacs users are all
> computer scientists and programers.
>
> Note that Emacs does officially recognize the term Keyboard Shortcut.
> The following is a excerpt from glossary section of the official emacs
> manual from emacs 22:
>
> Keyboard Shortcut
>      A keyboard shortcut is a key sequence (q.v.) which invokes a
>      command. What some programs call "assigning a keyboard shortcut,"
>      Emacs calls "binding a key sequence."  See `binding.'
>
> -------------------
>
> from “Modernization of Emacs”
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html
>
>   Xah
>http://xahlee.org/
>
>
>
> On Jul 21, 4:21 pm, Bastien <b...@altern.org> wrote:
>> Ben Aurel <ben.au...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > My question is simple: When I list some files in dired mode I select one
>> > file to edit. Now how can I close this file and go back to dired without
>> > closing emacs?
>>
>> Don't think in terms of "file".  When editing a "file", you really edit
>> a buffer* containing the content of the file.  To "close" the file
>> generally means to save the buffer and to kill the buffer.
>>
>> If you just want to "go back" to dired, you just need to switch back to
>> the buffer containing the directory listing: C-x b RET
>>
>> If you want to "close the file", then first save the buffer with C-x C-s
>> then kill the buffer with C-x k RET and you should be back to the buffer
>> containing the directory listing.
>>
>> HTH,
>>
>> * Press `C-x C-e' after the closing parenthesis to jump to the info page
>>   describing the concept of "buffer" inside GNU Emacs:
>>
>>   (info "(emacs)Buffers")
>>
>> --
>> Bastien
>


regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher




reply via email to

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