From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Bob Newell Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: How to make Emacs popular again. 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[141.239.244.209]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id x3sm9355232pfq.49.2020.09.27.17.52.22 for (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256/256); Sun, 27 Sep 2020 17:52:22 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: (James Lu's message of "Sun, 27 Sep 2020 16:38:31 -0400") Received-SPF: none client-ip=2607:f8b0:4864:20::102d; envelope-from=bobnewell@bobnewell.net; helo=mail-pj1-x102d.google.com X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: No matching host in p0f cache. That's all we know. X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE=-0.0001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_NONE=0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:256559 Archived-At: James Lu writes: > Can your response be summarized like this? > > "Let's keep doing the same thing we're doing now > and get the same result we've been getting for decades." No, that's a complete misreading! And in any case, Emacs has grown and developed over the years, and become ever more powerful. That's positive change with positive results. I perhaps wasn't clear enough about saying that of course more high-quality documentation would be a good thing, that more clarity would be a good thing, and that easing the learning curve would be a good thing. (That's not to say that there isn't already a lot of good documentation available, although perhaps scattered about.) The other side of that, though, is that I wouldn't like to see Emacs turned into some bloated monster. It's large enough as it is, but at least the size relates to the power. Emacs was never big on frills and cosmetics. Perhaps we have different concepts of what Emacs is or should be, and that's fine. The Emacs community is broad and a variety of opinions exist, as they should. I don't want Emacs to be Visual Studio. I certainly don't want it to be like an office suite with toolbars and ribbons filled with incomprehensible icons. I'm comfortable with the idea of putting in effort to get a lot more back in return. In turn, I recognize the need to keep the community active by bringing in new people. It's a balancing act but if we don't stay true to the core concepts of Emacs, which to me are unrivaled power and flexibility with a minimalist, unobtrusive interface, I think we will have gone in an unfortunate direction. I don't really know the statistics: is the Emacs audience truly in decline? By what measure? This is not a challenge but a genuine question; I really don't know the answer. -- Bob Newell Honolulu, Hawai`i - Via GNU/Linux/Emacs/Gnus/BBDB