Re: Gnus v5.6.24 is released

[Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org>]

>>>>> "R" == Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

R> Alt does not "generate" anything; neither does Meta.  They are
R> shifting keys, similar to Ctrl.  The only difference at that level
R> is that Symbolics called it "Meta" while IBM called it "Alt".

Sure Alt generates something.  It generates a keycode.  How else do
you think software can tell when you tap the alt key (to display
menus, perhaps)?

You'd might as well say that the only difference between Hyper and
Ctrl is that they have different names.  

>> What nromal function?  It doesn't toggle XON and XOFF for me.  Not
>> surprisingly, because XON and XOFF don't mean anything for X.

R> X is not the be-all and end-all.  Scrol Lock on a tty equates to
R> toggling XON and XOFF.  That is its originally intended purpose in
R> life.

Right, but we were talking about X.  If you'd like to discuss the
equivelence of Meta and Alt on terminals, say so.  But there's no
equivalence under X, and there's no documentation that I know of where
IBM engineers said "We need another modifier key, but instead of
calling it Meta, we'll call it Alt and really _mean_ Meta."

Sure, it is a commonly made equivalence, but there's nothing that
means it has to be so.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
You humans are all alike.