The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:01:35 -0700, Xah Lee <xah at xahlee.org> wrote:
> Here are some Frequently Asked Questions about The Modernization of
> Emacs.
>
> They are slightly lengthy, so i've separated each item per post. The
> whole article can be found at
>
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html
> ------------
>
> 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 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”.

No they are not.  See you may have a real *file* on a disk somewhere,
which is called 'opened file' or even 'untitled file'.  Now isn't it
confusing to think in terms of made-up descriptiors, just because the
term 'buffer' seems alien?

Educating the user to avoid confusion in this and other cases of made
up, 'user-friendly' descriptions is not a good enough answer.  If you
can educate the user about this sort of fine distinction between files
stored on a disk somewhere and files which are figments of the
imagination of Emacs, then I can educate them about 'buffer' too and be
done with it all.

The main difference is that I get to do it today, without the need for
multi-thousand-line changes in the source and documentation of Emacs and
its thousands of plugins.