Dale Amon schreef op 27-06-2016 0:50:
I believe it is called the Super key? What a stupid name to begin
with! And Alt is called the Meta key? Equally stupid!!!!.
[...]
What on earth were people thinking when they tried to get away from
calling it "windows key" and "alt key"????
While nowadays there are only two naming schemes that are still
commonly used (IBM PC-based & Apple), a long time ago many computer
companies had their own keyboard layouts & key names. On many old
keyboards these keys were named the "meta" and "super" keys:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Space-cadet.jpg/800px-Space-cadet.jpg
{META_KEY} was, and probably still is, a term used in a number of
important Unix
based utilities like Emacs and EmacsLisp. The specific binding of
MetaKey depends on the
system, and documentation is meant to be agnostic, thus some have come
to think that
a particular key on the recently/mostly standardized laptop keyboards
and 'Microsoft
Compatible' keyboards is what MetaKey means. Nope. It just happens to
be assigned to
that particular use on those particular keyboards/systems.
Maybe those keys are not assigned to the "meta key", but the meta key is
assigned to those keys, if you know what I mean. Maybe that's what you
say, you think.
But which is more important, the name "meta", or those keys?
I would say the name "meta" is completely irrelevant in todays world.
Those keys are not.
So you can say those keys are attributed to that name, but you can also
say that that name is a label attached to those keys on an insignificant
amount of systems world-wide.
Meaning, the name is in the minority, not those keys.
If you want to be compatible with everything and choose your names and
policies based on that, even if the things you want to be compatible
with have already died off......
Or if you want to cater to systems that are so in ill-use, that they are
less than 1% of the total population of keyboads, probably.....
Then it starts to not make sense to choose your naming policy based on
those systems and the width or scope of the compatibility you want to
achieve (call them statistical outliers) because you're now trying to be
compatible with systems of which only a single exemplar still remains,
so to speak.
If you have 10 million of one type and 3 of the other, maybe it doesn't
make sense to treat all of them as equal.
It's a bit the same in reporting, 10.000 scientists say one thing, 5 say
another thing, and both are treated equal in the press (both groups).
Not representative, is all I am saying here.
You could at least change it to "alt" or "command" and still make sense
in this world. You could even call the windows key the "system" key
insteadof command, but super key just doesn't make sense. The super
duper key.
On all Windows and Mac systems, the meta key (in a sense) is called Alt.
Can we do a calculation here? Are you trying to be relevant, or
irrelevant? And what audience are you working for, the ones that use
you, or the ones that are dead?
I would feel rather disregarded and disrespected, if I was your client.
You care more about people on another planet, than the ones right in
front of you, so to speak. (Reminds me of people making phone calls
while talking with you, or while having been talking to you).
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