Re: Apologia for bzr

[Per Starbäck]

    > This said, the "what you call a window is called a frame" is not nearly
    > as problematic as "what we call window is not what you think", so maybe
    > renaming "window" to "pane" would get us most of the benefit.

    I think you're right there.  If we just get rid of the word
    "window", I think that'll fix most confusions.  "Pane" and "frame"
    are more "technical" terms, and people aren't as apt to make
    assumptions about what they mean.

+1 to switching from "window", and leave it for a later time to decide when we're ready to take the next step. That will certainly be a long time from now, but the long run is what counts the most. And also there is a significant gain already from step 1.

Aren't we underestimating users's natural ability to abstract terms and
concepts?  For the average person the "confusion" regarding windows will
least for no more than two minutes, if ever, given that both the
tutorial and the manual explain what a window is...

Users *can* cope, but they have reason to choose not to do that. This is one of several things where beginning users can get the impression that Emacs is not for them because it's weird.  If they in just the first half hour of using Emacs meet several such things they may conclude that working with Emacs will continue to be like this; now and then it will turn out that it doesn't work as "expected" and that there are new names for everything, etc. Why not use That Other Editor that some other people suggested instead?