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In my experience "pairing" is used colloquially to refer to pair programming and I suggest that this is the presumptive meaning in the context of Emacs.

Current [pairing] usage: 2/5 about pair programming and 3/5 about matching quotes/parentheses

If a tag is needed to represent automatic closing or matching of parentheses/quotes use something like '[auto-closing]' or '[auto-pairing]' with or without hyphens.

For those curious: [pairing] on SO refers to device pairing.

My proposal:

  1. Create the tag [pair-programming] (same as on SO; very self-descriptive).
  2. Alias [pairing] to [pair-programming] (create a tag synonym).
  3. Remove the tag from the other 3/5 usages.

If there is a solid consensus I will go ahead and do #1 and #3 and request that someone with 2.5k rep do #2.

2 Answers 2

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“Pairing” might mean “pair programming” in a pair programming context, but we aren't working in this context. In an Emacs context, there's no natural association between “pairing” and “pair programming”. So a tag about pair programming should be only, there should not be a synonym called .

As “pairing” is vague and not standard Emacs terminology for anything (unlike “pair”), we should retag all the questions with this tag and not make make it a synonym. I don't think that there'a a tag that should apply to all of https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/20109/correct-autopair-in-term-mode (about in particular), How to define additional mode-specific pairs for electric-pair-mode (about and perhaps about ) and Unbalanced quotes auto-inserted in AUCTeX mode (about and electric something).

I'm not sure that is appropriate as a tag for Is there a mode for viewing keystroke lossage in realtime? and Making scrolling easier to follow when pair programming either. They are about having an Emacs session with multiple terminals and pair programming is only one example of when this might happen. Tags should indicate what a question is about, not why it was asked — someone asking exactly the same question but with a different motivation shouldn't end up using different tags. I don't know what term to use — is there any official Emacs terminology (i.e. something used in the manual) for having multiple terminals “actively relevant” at the same time?

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  • I'm making an observation based on the emacsers I know (mainly software developers and data scientists) and time online. If you are not similarly familiar with the casual term I guess it's less widely used in the world than I've estimated, so I'm fine with dropping 'pairing.
    – ebpa
    Commented Jul 9, 2016 at 21:00
  • For selection and naming of tags I agree a proper emacs terms takes precedence, but by no means should we be limited to them. There are many topics of relevance for people that are tricky to capture. This is not SO; duplicate questions are not an untenable problem. Forcing a reductionist tagging strategy is unnecessary and IMHO is user-hostile.
    – ebpa
    Commented Jul 9, 2016 at 21:01
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pairing is a bad tag name.

  1. For matching delimiters it should be called something like matching-delimiters or delimiter-matching (or possibly delimiter-pairing, if "pairing" is commonly used for this).

    In the manual this is generally referred to as parenthesis matching. And matched delimiters are treated as the syntax classes open and close "parentheses":

    "Characters used in dissimilar pairs to surround sentences or expressions."

    (Should such a tag also apply to similar pairs, such as '...' and "..."?)

  2. For pair programming it should be called something like pair-programming or group-programming (or whatever is really involved).

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