miswart

2 definitions found

miswart - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  miswart
  
     /mis-wort/ [By analogy with misbug] A feature that
     superficially appears to be a wart but has been determined
     to be the Right Thing.  For example, in some versions of the
     Emacs text editor, the "transpose characters" command
     exchanges the character under the cursor with the one before
     it on the screen, *except* when the cursor is at the end of a
     line, in which case the two characters before the cursor are
     exchanged.  While this behaviour is perhaps surprising, and
     certainly inconsistent, it has been found through extensive
     experimentation to be what most users want.  This feature is a
     miswart.
  
     [Jargon File]
  

miswart - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  miswart
   /mis.wort/, n.
  
     [from wart by analogy with misbug] A feature that superficially
     appears to be a wart but has been determined to be the Right Thing
     . For example, in some versions of the EMACS text editor, the
     `transpose characters' command exchanges the character under the
     cursor with the one before it on the screen, except when the cursor
  is
     at the end of a line, in which case the two characters before the
     cursor are exchanged. While this behavior is perhaps surprising, and
     certainly inconsistent, it has been found through extensive
     experimentation to be what most users want. This feature is a
  miswart.