bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Dan Jacobson]

Regarding

   Emacs is resuming after an emergency escape.
   Auto-save? (y or n)
   Abort (and dump core)? (y or n)

and its documentation, (info "(emacs) Emergency Escape"),

well, I would just like to say it is not fair to the user,
to not mention what will happen if they just hit RET.

Not fair in the prompts. Not fair in the documentation.

So the prompts should have one letter bigger, or use [ ] etc.
to indicate if RET=y or if RET=n. And the documentation needs to
document what will happen too.

Or document why it doesn't document it.

Oh, yes, I did try it. Two RETs. Yup.
And I am still alive.
However what did actually happen is a secret.

By the way, maybe a thorough check should be made to identify any other
"test your luck" ambiguous prompts.

Also they need to look different from the prompts that indeed "won't
take RET as an answer" and "demand a real answer, y or n".

emacs-version "29.4"

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Eli Zaretskii]

tags 72389 notabug wontfix
close 72389
thanks

> From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>
> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2024 09:17:25 +0800
> 
> Regarding
> 
>    Emacs is resuming after an emergency escape.
>    Auto-save? (y or n)
>    Abort (and dump core)? (y or n)
> 
> and its documentation, (info "(emacs) Emergency Escape"),
> 
> well, I would just like to say it is not fair to the user,
> to not mention what will happen if they just hit RET.

Nothing happens if you just hit RET.  So I don't understand the drama.

> Oh, yes, I did try it. Two RETs. Yup.
> And I am still alive.
> However what did actually happen is a secret.

Nothing happened.

Closing.

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Dan Jacobson]

>> Emacs is resuming after an emergency escape.
>> Auto-save? (y or n)
Say: Auto-save? (y or n, RET)

>> Abort (and dump core)? (y or n)
Say: Abort (and dump core)? (y or n, RET)

Also say that in (info "(emacs) Emergency Escape").

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>
> Cc: 72389@debbugs.gnu.org, rms@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 18:36:57 +0800
> 
> >> Emacs is resuming after an emergency escape.
> >> Auto-save? (y or n)
> Say: Auto-save? (y or n, RET)
> 
> >> Abort (and dump core)? (y or n)
> Say: Abort (and dump core)? (y or n, RET)
> 
> Also say that in (info "(emacs) Emergency Escape").

Any key except 'y' will do the same as 'n'.  So we have to say

  Auto-save? (y or n, RET, a, b, c, d, e, f, ..., A, B, C, D, E, F,...)

Right?

More importantly, this text:

  (y or n, RET)

doesn't really say what will RET do.

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Stephen Berman via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

On Sun, 04 Aug 2024 13:43:04 +0300 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

>> From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>
>> Cc: 72389@debbugs.gnu.org, rms@gnu.org
>> Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 18:36:57 +0800
>>
>> >> Emacs is resuming after an emergency escape.
>> >> Auto-save? (y or n)
>> Say: Auto-save? (y or n, RET)
>>
>> >> Abort (and dump core)? (y or n)
>> Say: Abort (and dump core)? (y or n, RET)
>>
>> Also say that in (info "(emacs) Emergency Escape").
>
> Any key except 'y' will do the same as 'n'.  So we have to say
>
>   Auto-save? (y or n, RET, a, b, c, d, e, f, ..., A, B, C, D, E, F,...)
>
> Right?
>
> More importantly, this text:
>
>   (y or n, RET)
>
> doesn't really say what will RET do.

Instead of asking a question, what about something like this:

  Type 'y' to auto-save.
  Type 'y' to abort (and dump core).

and perhaps adding something like "(typing any other key does nothing)"
for completeness?  Or a similar or more suitable message could be
displayed on typing any other key.

Steve Berman

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>
> Cc: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>,  72389@debbugs.gnu.org,  rms@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 13:23:17 +0200
> 
> On Sun, 04 Aug 2024 13:43:04 +0300 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> >> From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>
> >> Cc: 72389@debbugs.gnu.org, rms@gnu.org
> >> Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 18:36:57 +0800
> >>
> >> >> Emacs is resuming after an emergency escape.
> >> >> Auto-save? (y or n)
> >> Say: Auto-save? (y or n, RET)
> >>
> >> >> Abort (and dump core)? (y or n)
> >> Say: Abort (and dump core)? (y or n, RET)
> >>
> >> Also say that in (info "(emacs) Emergency Escape").
> >
> > Any key except 'y' will do the same as 'n'.  So we have to say
> >
> >   Auto-save? (y or n, RET, a, b, c, d, e, f, ..., A, B, C, D, E, F,...)
> >
> > Right?
> >
> > More importantly, this text:
> >
> >   (y or n, RET)
> >
> > doesn't really say what will RET do.
> 
> Instead of asking a question, what about something like this:
> 
>   Type 'y' to auto-save.
>   Type 'y' to abort (and dump core).
> 
> and perhaps adding something like "(typing any other key does nothing)"
> for completeness?  Or a similar or more suitable message could be
> displayed on typing any other key.

When someone gets presented these messages, they are panicking.  They
are in stress because their precious session is about to crash and
they are about to lose their edits.  The text we present should
therefore be short, and it should be clear.  It shouldn't be a legal
document full of caveats and terms&conditions and other kind of
lawyer style language.

Now, "Auto-save? (y or n)" is short, and is clear, and tells me
exactly what to do: press "y" or press "n", nothing else.  Anything we
add will just make it longer and harder to read in a stress and more
likely to confuse.  For example, "Type 'y' to auto-save." leaves me
wondering what do I do if I don't want to auto-save.

Why do we need to complicate this?  I don't think we should.

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Dan Jacobson]

EZ> When someone gets presented these messages, they are panicking.

So they shouldn't have to go looking around their keyboard to find the
"n" key, when all along any other key (except "y") would work the same,
except the 'information hoarders' won't tell them that, because "Well,
it doesn't matter, because they won't get burnt anyway."

bug#72389: Unfair prompts and documentation of Emergency Escape

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>
> Cc: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>,  72389@debbugs.gnu.org,
>   rms@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 22:04:33 +0800
> 
> EZ> When someone gets presented these messages, they are panicking.
> 
> So they shouldn't have to go looking around their keyboard to find the
> "n" key, when all along any other key (except "y") would work the same,
> except the 'information hoarders' won't tell them that, because "Well,
> it doesn't matter, because they won't get burnt anyway."

If you ever learn to give some respect to people who develop software
you use, instead of considering them all imbeciles or worse --
villains ("information hoarders"), then maybe, just maybe, you will
one day succeed to report real bugs or suggest useful improvements.

IOW, your whole attitude needs serious adjustment.

bug#72389: So easy to trigger

[Dan Jacobson]

Also this will occur very often when using emacs -nw, as
CTRL+GGGGGGG is just one key away from
CTRL+FFFFFFF, which is the main way of moving the cursor forward several spaces.
thus letting the user know they can just use RET in addition to y or n will be helpful.