Re: GNU Emacs raison d'etre

[excalamus]

May 28, 2020, 12:04 by raman@google.com:

> "Philip K." <philip@warpmail.net> writes:
>
>
> It's no more or no less intuitive than alt-F4 in "other platforms" that
> people often label intuitive without thinking about it.
>
> And for the record, the insert/replace key is a carry-over from
> DOS word-processors of the early 80's.
>
>> excalamus--- via "Emacs development discussions."
>>
> <emacs-devel@gnu.org> writes: 
>
>>> What does C-g mean? Why the sequence C-g specifically? I think the
>>> disconnect may be that C-g appears outwardly meaningless.
>>>
>>
>> I always assumed it was because C-g, when inserted literally had the
>> same value as does the ASCII bell (BEL, or '\a' in C) character. When
>> you open the "ascii" man-page on G and BEL even appear on the same
>> line. So in some sense it's like C-m/C-i, that do the same as
>> return/tab. 
>>
>> But I guess that's neither consistent, relavant or intuitive.
>>
These are excellent observations (and I always love the history I learn through 
being an Emacs user).  Arguably, 'C-g' is one of the most important 
keybindings/functions in Emacs.  It's unfortunate that there's not a clear 
winner for a mnemonic.  "Get out" or "Get away" is the best I can come up with 
for English.  I tried translating the following possible interpretations to 
other languages (German, French, Spanish) and "giro" ("turn" in Spanish, 
apparently) was the 'best'.  

cancel
escape
abort
terminate
scrub
curtail
stop
discontinue
cease
counteract
redirect
avert
undo
disengage
avert
deflect
abstain
divert
reversal
turnabout
doubleback
turnaround
reverse
repeal
retract
annul