Re: Defining 'preferred form for making modifications'
Thomas Bushnell, BSG said:
> "Brian T. Sniffen" <bts@alum.mit.edu> writes:
>
>> Nonsense. I edit multiple images into a single image all the time,
>> but rarely save an XCF file: multiple layers live in the
>> image-editor's memory, but never hit the disk. There is no persistent
>> form which represents "source" any more than there is for a wood
>> carving or a painting.
>
> There is, but you delete them.
>
> This is exactly parallel to writing Scheme code in an online Scheme
> system, but never saving it, and then at the end, writing out a
> standalone executable, quitting, and destroying the source.
>
> The fact that it may be common practice to destroy the source in image
> editors is lamentable, but doesn't change the relationship of the
> parts.
It certainly does: if there is no persistent form, it isn't the source.
Otherwise, the elisp code which is generated (and used, but usually never
seen) by programmers writing C in Emacs would have to be distributed as
part of the "build scripts" -- I don't have to distribute C-mode, the
current region stack, or ephemeral keyboard macros with my C programs,
right? I'm not entirely convinced it *always* applies, but in general it
seems that persistent storage is a good rule of thumb for identifying
source. If I didn't save it to work on later, it isn't source, but a
single act of creation.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
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