LLEMR's not an EMR

What is an EMR?

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

— Phil Karlton

And this is not a post about cache invalidation. (It's about naming things.)

When we say that a particular peice of software "is" a text editor, a slideshow maker, a spreadsheet maker, or a photo editor, what do we mean?

Probably, you are inclined to name some features common to particular types of software. A photo editor ought to be able to change the brightness/contrast of a photo, for instance. In your spreasheet editor, you probably expect to be able to make plots.

But once you start to examine which features are found in which software, you start to encounter confusion. But you can edit a photo's brightness/contrast just fine in PowerPoint--so it's not about the kind of operations your software can do.

You might say it's aboutIf you use beamer, your text editor can make a beautiful slideshow, so it's not even really about what your program can make.