The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

[Twisted]

On Jun 23, 8:35 pm, Robert Uhl <eadmun... at NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
> Twisted <twisted... at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > For an example of the latter, consider opening a file. Can't remember
> > the exact spelling and capitalization of the file name? Sorry, bud,
> > you're SOL. Go find it in some other app and memorize the name, then
> > return to emacs.
>
> Once again I am forced to wonder if you have _ever_ actually used
> emacs.  find-file has tab completion: hit tab without anything typed, and
> it displays _everything_ in the directory; type a few characters to
> narrow it down; hit tab to complete the filename and be done with it.
>
> Or of course you could use directory mode, which enables you to navigate
> around a directory tree, performing actions on files (including editing
> them).
>
> Then of course there's ido.el, which is even better: type a few
> characters from anywhere in the name, and it displays files matching
> those characters.

Really? None of this happens if you just do the straightforward file-
open command, which should obviously at least provide a navigable
directory tree, but definitely does not. One sounds like it involves
managing a separate open window on each directory you're interested in
(versus having a file...open dialog that falls open to the last place
you'd left it and doesn't clutter up any space when you're not opening
a file); the other sounds like it involves actually installing a
plugin of some kind, which is obviously well beyond what a beginner
should need to do just to get a freaking directory listing. :) Tab
completion is a poor cousin to a real directory tree navigator, as I'm
sure most would agree. Even if it will show all matches to a partial
name instead of none, it's the textual equivalent of navigating a
directory tree made into menus instead of provided by a proper folder
view window. Windows users unfortunately have the experience
regularly: the notorious Start menu. You have to expand submenus to
find stuff, and you can't leave it idling to do something somewhere
else and come back to it because it's a menu. Moreover, clicking an
item may display a large number of items the next level down, which
runs into screen display space issues. Even a large video mode can't
hide the fact that menus weren't really designed to list hundreds of
sibling items or for scrolling or finding stuff in a large set of
files, unlike folder windows. I can only imagine the pain of trying to
navigate an equivalent way in an 80x25 box of text information. That
would be like navigating the Windows start menu from outside your
house by peeking through a keyhole and reaching through a window with
a repurposed straightened out coathanger. Clumsy AND the neighbors'll
see you and call the cops well before you find the item you're looking
for. :) (Navigating the Windows start menu in safe mode, at 640x480,
is about as close as most Windows users are ever likely to come to the
nightmare of opening a file in emacs when you don't already know its
exact path.)