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(emacs-lisp-intro.info)Digression concerning error

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Digression about the word `error'
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   (In my opinion, it is slightly misleading, at least to humans, to use
the term `error' as the name of the `error' function.  A better term
would be `cancel'.  Strictly speaking, of course, you cannot point to,
much less rotate a pointer to a list that has no length, so from the
point of view of the computer, the word `error' is correct.  But a
human expects to attempt this sort of thing, if only to find out
whether the kill ring is full or empty.  This is an act of exploration.

   (From the human point of view, the act of exploration and discovery
is not necessarily an error, and therefore should not be labelled as
one, even in the bowels of a computer.  As it is, the code in Emacs
implies that a human who is acting virtuously, by exploring his or her
environment, is making an error.  This is bad.  Even though the computer
takes the same steps as it does when there is an `error', a term such as
`cancel' would have a clearer connotation.)