bug#40697: 25.3; sort-lines not accepting reverse parameter

[Roland Hughes]

On 4/19/20 8:08 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Cc: stepnem@gmail.com, 40697@debbugs.gnu.org
> > From: Roland Hughes <roland@logikalsolutions.com>
> > Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2020 14:48:19 -0500
> >
> > The wording in the help text is rather expert friendly. A user coming in
> > cold to Emacs is going to interpret "prefix argument" as
> >
> > [GOLD]-7 REVERSE sort-lines [RETURN]
> I can only say that I used the terminology and style that are used
> everywhere in our doc strings.

Yeah, I know. Not slamming you. Just pointing out the reason more 
people, especially from non-Linux platforms don't use Emacs is the 
"expert friendly" doc and culture around it. One must know all of the 
secret handshakes to join the club. New people, especially from a 
Windows world, aren't willing to do that. The GUI version of Emacs was a 
giant step in the right direction. Combined with EDT emulation it can 
eliminate needing to know most of the super secret handshakes.

Perhaps the "correct" solution here is for EDT or the sort- maintainers 
to add -reverse versions of each method so they are a single command 
with a common naming format requiring no super secret handshakes.

[GOLD]-7 sort-lines [RETURN]

[GOLD]-7 sort-lines-reverse [RETURN]

same with numbers and a few of the others. They would just be a wrapper 
layer, but they would provide an easily digestible interface for those 
not looking to become one with the internals of Emacs or Linux.

--
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

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