RE: Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have)

[Drew Adams]

> > It's been said before: Please do NOT refer
> > to such a prepared set of settings and
> > packages as an Emacs "distribution".
> 
> Sure!
> 
> > These are not distributions. Call them nearly
> > anything but that, please.
> 
> Please, share with me your preferred term and I'll use it from now on. :)

Sorry if my request sounded too enthusiastic.
And no, it's not particularly important to me.
I just thought the list had generally agree to
move beyond that term for such bundles.

Recently this question came up on this list, in
passing.  It's not super important, but the term
can lead to some confusion.

Here's one recent post that mentions it:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2020-09/msg00666.html

I don't have a preferred term for whatever such
bundles of Emacs configurations might be called.
But avoiding "distribution" makes sense to me.

AFAIK, these are all GNU Emacs under the covers
(and above), with different default behaviors,
look & feel, etc.

In this list, so far, they've sometimes been
referred to as "starter kits" (but are all of
them only for those starting out?), and as
"canned configurations".

In some ways some of them might resemble super
"packages", super "themes", or even super global
minor "modes".

But in general I imagine they're more hard-coded,
in the sense that you either use one or you don't -
you don't combine them or switch from one to another
during an Emacs session, or turn one on/off during
a session.  In the message you responded to I used
the description "a prepared set of settings and
packages".

But not being a user of any of them, I'm not well
placed to come up with a good word to describe them.
Perhaps someone else here has a good idea about that.