I know Yes/No remains very usable in a terminal, but seriously, why is there not consensus about the question of verbs vs Yes/No alternatives in dialogs yet?

I always thought the verbs were obviously better. Better the quicker you're reading the dialog, and most users don't bother reading it all.

To be clear with what I mean:

1. Do you want to save your data before exiting?

[Yes] [No] [Cancel]

2. Do you want to save your data before exiting?

[Save] [Discard] [Cancel]

For GUIs I 100% agree it should always use verbs. For command lines I think there's a very long history of confirming destructive things and allowing for /usr/bin/yes, so verbs don't quite make sense.

I think GUIs took so long coming around because of the command line.

The question "Do you want to save" on exit (which some software asks) is destructive when answered "no" (you lose shat you've typed and efited). I've always found it wrong, as in most other cases answering yes is destructive ("do you want to format?")

It's effectively a different way of asking "Are you sure?" where the affirmative continues.

Which version of JOE? It should say "File fred has been modified. Save it (y, n, ^C)?"

Maybe you have a .joerc file in your home directory with the old bindings.

Hmm, it may be that the repository had an old version. I'll try looking for an update.