bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Daniel Vianna]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 10464 bytes --]

From: dmlvianna@gmail.com
To: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: 26.1; gomoku demotivational messages
--text follows this line--

* Start of message

Gomoku made my 6 year old child cry.

I hope you take it seriously. I am introducing my child to programming
by letting him play games in emacs. He loves snake. He understands that
programs are just instructions (like Lego instructions) that the
computer must follow to do things. And now he found Gomoku.

I believe emacs should be an inviting environment for users. And gomoku,
albeit hard, should not punish people from using it. But it does. All
its messages are demotivational. I think this detracts emacs from the
core GNU value of helping your friends to learn.

Yes, I did what I was supposed to do in order to cheer him up. I told
him not to believe on what the computer was saying (that "trying didn't
help him much.") I told not to trust the computer.

Is that the message you would like GNU to send to budding computer
users?

I am thankful for emacs. I hope it keeps getting better. That's why I
wrote this. Regardless of changes being made to the messages, I'm going
to show him the source and hopefully this will still serve as a lesson
in programming.

Kind regards,

Daniel Vianna.

* End of message


In GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30)
 of 2018-12-01 built on localhost
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11906000
Recent messages:
Let me think...
Your move?
Let me think...
Your move?
Let me think...
Your move?
Let me think...
Your move?
Let me think...
I won...  Playing first did not help you much!

Configured using:
 'configure
 --prefix=/nix/store/p9pi161yslb7gnmw77c3r08wx9lmg3bh-emacs-26.1
 --with-modules --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-xft
 CFLAGS=-DMAC_OS_X_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=101200'

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND DBUS GSETTINGS NOTIFY LIBSELINUX GNUTLS
LIBXML2 FREETYPE M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11
MODULES THREADS LIBSYSTEMD

Important settings:
  value of $EMACSLOADPATH:
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp:
  value of $LANG: en_AU.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Gomoku

Minor modes in effect:
  pyvenv-mode: t
  global-magit-file-mode: t
  diff-auto-refine-mode: t
  magit-auto-revert-mode: t
  global-git-commit-mode: t
  async-bytecomp-package-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  global-flycheck-mode: t
  auto-compile-on-load-mode: t
  auto-compile-on-save-mode: t
  override-global-mode: t
  xterm-mouse-mode: t
  global-auto-revert-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  global-visual-line-mode: t
  visual-line-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy-pkg hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy-pkg
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy-django hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy-django
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy-shell hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy-shell
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy-profile hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy-profile
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy-refactor hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy-refactor
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/elpy-20181214.2233/elpy-autoloads hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/elpy-20180720.155/elpy-autoloads
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-20181214.1048/flycheck hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-20180720.247/flycheck
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-20181214.1048/flycheck-autoloads
hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-20180720.247/flycheck-autoloads
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-20181214.1048/flycheck-ert hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-20180720.247/flycheck-ert
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-20181214.1048/flycheck-pkg hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-20180720.247/flycheck-pkg
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-20181214.1048/flycheck-buttercup
hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-20180720.247/flycheck-buttercup
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-mypy-20180907.1016/flycheck-mypy
hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-mypy-20180518.4/flycheck-mypy
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-mypy-20180907.1016/flycheck-mypy-pkg
hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-mypy-20180518.4/flycheck-mypy-pkg
/home/dmvianna/.emacs.d/elpa/flycheck-mypy-20180907.1016/flycheck-mypy-autoloads
hides
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/flycheck-mypy-20180518.4/flycheck-mypy-autoloads
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start
hides
/nix/store/p9pi161yslb7gnmw77c3r08wx9lmg3bh-emacs-26.1/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/seq-2.20/seq
hides
/nix/store/p9pi161yslb7gnmw77c3r08wx9lmg3bh-emacs-26.1/share/emacs/26.1/lisp/emacs-lisp/seq
/nix/store/6ykjgzh208hm7j3zqwbysckfckpkvhbi-emacs-packages-deps/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa/let-alist-1.0.5/let-alist
hides
/nix/store/p9pi161yslb7gnmw77c3r08wx9lmg3bh-emacs-26.1/share/emacs/26.1/lisp/emacs-lisp/let-alist

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug sendmail gomoku init rainbow-delimiters
rainbow-mode rust-config flycheck-rust racer pos-tip f cargo
cargo-process rust-mode python-config yasnippet elec-pair
highlight-indentation flymake-proc flymake warnings company-capf
help-fns radix-tree elpy find-file-in-project elpy-shell pyvenv esh-var
esh-io esh-cmd esh-opt esh-ext esh-proc esh-arg esh-groups eshell
esh-module esh-mode esh-util elpy-profile elpy-django s elpy-refactor
python tramp-sh tramp tramp-compat tramp-loaddefs trampver ucs-normalize
parse-time grep files-x etags xref project cus-edit cus-start cus-load
wid-edit flycheck-mypy purescript-config purescript-mode
purescript-string purescript-sort-imports purescript-align-imports cl
compile dabbrev hyde hyde-md hyde-git markdown-mode color noutline
outline json-mode json-reformat json-snatcher js sgml-mode dom thingatpt
cc-mode cc-fonts cc-guess cc-menus cc-cmds cc-styles cc-align cc-engine
cc-vars cc-defs javascript-config web-mode disp-table haskell-config
nix-config pickle magit-obsolete magit-blame magit-stash magit-bisect
magit-remote magit-commit magit-sequence magit-notes magit-worktree
magit-tag magit-merge magit-branch magit-reset magit-collab ghub
url-http tls gnutls url-gw nsm url-auth url url-proxy url-privacy
url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie url-domsuf url-util
mailcap let-alist magit-files magit-refs magit-status magit magit-repos
magit-apply magit-wip magit-log which-func imenu magit-diff smerge-mode
diff-mode magit-core magit-autorevert magit-process magit-margin
magit-mode git-commit magit-git magit-section magit-utils crm
magit-popup log-edit message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs format-spec
rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 mm-util
ietf-drums mail-prsvr mailabbrev mail-utils gmm-utils mailheader
pcvs-util add-log with-editor async-bytecomp async shell pcomplete
comint ansi-color ring server company pcase flycheck json map find-func
subr-x cl-extra help-mode jka-compr solarized-dark-theme solarized dash
misc-config exec-path-from-shell auto-compile advice packed use-package
use-package-ensure use-package-delight use-package-diminish
use-package-bind-key bind-key easy-mmode use-package-core xt-mouse
windmove autorevert filenotify ido finder-inf rx edmacro kmacro info
package easymenu epg-config url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq
eieio eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache url-vars seq
seq-25 byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib
time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar
dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment
text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar
rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock
syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european
ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer
cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files
text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote dbusbind inotify
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 566265 24794)
 (symbols 48 45888 3)
 (miscs 40 48 114)
 (strings 32 139006 3067)
 (string-bytes 1 4118036)
 (vectors 16 70655)
 (vector-slots 8 1131524 24442)
 (floats 8 389 311)
 (intervals 56 837 107)
 (buffers 992 12))

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 12663 bytes --]

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Daniel Vianna <dmlvianna@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:52:28 +1100
> 
> Gomoku made my 6 year old child cry.

Maybe we could have a child-mode in Gomoku, which would substitute the
messages with something more encouraging.

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Francesco Potortì]

>Gomoku made my 6 year old child cry.
...
>I am thankful for emacs. I hope it keeps getting better. That's why I
>wrote this. Regardless of changes being made to the messages, I'm going
>to show him the source and hopefully this will still serve as a lesson
>in programming.

If you can show the sources, I think you can turn a bad experience into
a good one!  Just look at the messages, and change them, then have your
child play again with the new messages you wrote together :)

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Eli Zaretskii]

[Please use Reply All to keep the bug address on the CC list.]

> From: Daniel Vianna <dmlvianna@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2018 08:05:20 +1100
> 
> Well... I feel discouraged too. As an adult.

I believe that depends on personal preferences.

> I understand the code is supposed to be terse an easy to interpret. Just making the messages more
> encouraging would be great.

I'm quite sure the original messages were written with an explicit
goal to tease the human player.  It could be detrimental when the
player is young and this is his/her first experience with playing
games with computers.

> Another potential improvement would be to count how many moves were made leading to the end of the
> game. As it stands, Gomoku displays only how many games were won/lost. It doesn't take into account that
> the player might be making progress in terms of dragging the game longer until the algorithm wins.
> 
> I believe the aim of any piece of elisp should be to encourage the user to keep improving.
> 
> I'm not confident in elisp myself. Should I have a go at it?

If you can propose the changes to the messages and/or the places where
you think a move count will be useful, please do that, in plain
English, using the source line numbers to specify the location of each
change.  Changes in Lisp, if they are more than a dozen lines, will
require that you assign the copyright to the FSF, which involves
filling and sending a simple form with information about your changes.

Thanks.

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Douglas Lewan]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 429 bytes --]

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> If you can propose the changes to the messages and/or the places where
> you think a move count will be useful, please do that, in plain
> English,....
This sounds to me like a perfect opportunity for customization.

-- 
,Doug
Douglas Lewan
+1 (908) 720-7908
Give me "assloads of config" over "some other person thought they could decide what I like" any day. - Szmo, on reddit, 2017 Sep 05


[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 736 bytes --]

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Paul Eggert]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 244 bytes --]

Thanks for the bug report. I installed into the master branch the attached 
patch, which I hope prevents similar problems in the future. I didn't implement 
a move-counter; perhaps someone else can volunteer to do that, if they have the 
time.

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-Improve-motivations-in-gomoku-messages.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 3401 bytes --]

From 8167316fd6406adbeb8fe91db9ee59e2f47bddb0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2018 21:55:01 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] Improve motivations in gomoku messages

* lisp/play/gomoku.el (gomoku-terminate-game):
Don't make six-year-old children cry (Bug#33803).
---
 lisp/play/gomoku.el | 28 ++++++++++++++--------------
 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lisp/play/gomoku.el b/lisp/play/gomoku.el
index 6ce2750f86..32b29b70f4 100644
--- a/lisp/play/gomoku.el
+++ b/lisp/play/gomoku.el
@@ -656,48 +656,48 @@ gomoku-terminate-game
     ((eq result 'emacs-won)
      (setq gomoku-number-of-emacs-wins (1+ gomoku-number-of-emacs-wins))
      (cond ((< gomoku-number-of-moves 20)
-	    "This was a REALLY QUICK win.")
+	    "I won...  I hope you like the game as you get better.")
 	   (gomoku-human-refused-draw
 	    "I won...  Too bad you refused my offer of a draw!")
 	   (gomoku-human-took-back
-	    "I won...  Taking moves back will not help you!")
+	    "I won...  It's OK to take back more moves next time.")
 	   ((not gomoku-emacs-played-first)
-	    "I won...  Playing first did not help you much!")
+	    "I won...  Use C-c C-b to take back a move on second thought.")
 	   ((and (zerop gomoku-number-of-human-wins)
 		 (zerop gomoku-number-of-draws)
 		 (> gomoku-number-of-emacs-wins 1))
-	    "I'm becoming tired of winning...")
+	    "I won...  It might be time take a break before trying again.")
 	   ("I won.")))
     ((eq result 'human-won)
      (setq gomoku-number-of-human-wins (1+ gomoku-number-of-human-wins))
      (concat "OK, you won this one."
 	     (cond
 	      (gomoku-human-took-back
-	       "  I, for one, never take my moves back...")
+	       "  For a bigger challenge, play without taking moves back.")
 	      (gomoku-emacs-played-first
-	       ".. so what?")
-	      ("  Now, let me play first just once."))))
+	       "  Congratulations!")
+	      ("  For a bigger challenge, let me play first."))))
     ((eq result 'human-resigned)
      (setq gomoku-number-of-emacs-wins (1+ gomoku-number-of-emacs-wins))
-     "So you resign.  That's just one more win for me.")
+     "I see that you resigned.  Better luck next time.")
     ((eq result 'nobody-won)
      (setq gomoku-number-of-draws (1+ gomoku-number-of-draws))
      (concat "This is a draw.  "
 	     (cond
 	      (gomoku-human-took-back
-	       "I, for one, never take my moves back...")
+	       "  For a bigger challenge, try without taking moves back.")
 	      (gomoku-emacs-played-first
-	       "Just chance, I guess.")
-	      ("Now, let me play first just once."))))
+	       "Wow, that was a long game.  We both played well.")
+	      ("  For a bigger challenge, let me play first."))))
     ((eq result 'draw-agreed)
      (setq gomoku-number-of-draws (1+ gomoku-number-of-draws))
      (concat "Draw agreed.  "
 	     (cond
 	      (gomoku-human-took-back
-	       "I, for one, never take my moves back...")
+	       "  For a bigger challenge, try without taking moves back.")
 	      (gomoku-emacs-played-first
-	       "You were lucky.")
-	      ("Now, let me play first just once."))))
+	       "Good game.")
+	      ("  For a bigger challenge, let me play first."))))
     ((eq result 'crash-game)
      "Sorry, I have been interrupted and cannot resume that game...")))
   (gomoku-display-statistics)
-- 
2.17.1

bug#33803: gomoku demotivational messages

[Daniel Vianna]

Wow. That was inspired. Thank you!

-- 
Daniel Vianna

> On 28 Dec 2018, at 4:59 pm, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the bug report. I installed into the master branch the attached patch, which I hope prevents similar problems in the future. I didn't implement a move-counter; perhaps someone else can volunteer to do that, if they have the time.
> <0001-Improve-motivations-in-gomoku-messages.patch>