Re: Changes for emacs 28

[Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>]

On Mon, Sep 07, 2020 at 09:58:32AM -0400, Yoni Rabkin wrote:
>
>Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> writes:
>
>> I am NOT telling we should do all this, but this is what a young user
>> expects because all these is more or less standard everywhere else.
>
>I appreciate you enthusiasm for making Emacs popular. Thank you for
>that.
>
>However, it is always jarring to me to see free software developers
>arguing over features none of them like or want, and instead trying to
>"prove" to the other that a hypothetical third person would really like
>those features. This supposed "young user" is a pretend person; they
>don't exist. People ascribe whatever properties they want to the poor
>hypothetical "young user" and then argue that those properties require a
>change in Emacs. I disagree with this approach because I think that real
>people and their preferences are more complicated and subtle than any
>person we can make up as a tool to back an argument.
>
The post actually started not for adding new features, but just to
change some of our defaults. Actually one thing I don't like about doom
or spacemacs is the excessive complexity they add and long configuration
sets.

When I recommend Emacs to any of my students; after a week trying it
they finally go for VSCode or sublime and they get the work done in an
hour.

Actually I have this config I share with them with only vanilla features:

https://github.com/Ergus/mini_dotemacs

And so far I could convince at least some of them this year.

>If you want these features yourself then you should add them (I don't
>mean that in a sarcastic way at all). Your enthusiasm for creating and
>maintaining these features will appeal to others who want similar
>features. We all know and love this way of development in the free
>software development world. This way assures that at least one real
>person's needs are being met.
>
Again, are not features the "issue", but some "bad" defaults. If there
come out specific features I will try (as I am doing actually with
vertical-icomplete or highlight-completions).

The question to the developers was about defaults we would be willing to
change and which are whiten in stone.

>If you don't want these features yourself and nobody else in the project
>wants them either, the only way I can think of making a compelling
>argument for people to develop those feature is to ask real people and
>get real responses. I am fairly confident that if you had a testimony or
>user-test from actual people stating that a feature is missing, then
>people here would help develop that feature.
>
Actually as mentioned before, the existence of doom emacs, spacemacs and
all the other configs (some of them more popular than vanilla these
days) is a proof.

>I develop Emacs extensions (Emms, rt-liberation in GNU ELPA, and others
>outside of it). I never try to guess what a hypothetical person wants
>from Emms, but I do actively solicit requests and suggestions from
>anyone I can, and when someone cares enough to ask for a feature, I do
>everything I can to add it. Indeed, Emms has several extensions and
>modes that I never use and can't even wrap my head around why people
>like. But real people asked for them, so they are there.
>
I am adding changes to completions and icomplete while I use ivy.

>-- 
>   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"