Re: Emacs Survey 2022 - design

[Timothy <tecosaur@gmail.com>]

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Hi Stefan,

Thanks for all the feedback!

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>             validators = v -> if v < 0
>
> Could also just be a wrap around.

Perhaps, I’m inclined to leave it as “yelling at the user for doing something
silly” though.

>>         MultiSelect(:emacs_mode,
>
> You can use the daemon with GUI frames or with text frames (or both), so
> the 3 choices aren’t mutually exclusive.

“MultiSelect” corresponds to a set of checkboxes, any number of which can be
selected (as opposed to “RadioSelect”). So, these options aren’t mutually
exclusive :)

>>         MultiSelect(:languages,
>
> ELisp is strangely missing here.

How did I miss that!? Added.

>>     SurveyPart(“First time questions”,
>>         “All of these questions are <i>optional</i>. Answer these if you’re
>> doing the survey for the first time.”,
>
> I think “taking” is the better verb here instead of “doing”, tho
> hopefully some native anglophone can confirm.

That sounds better to me.

>>     SurveyPart(“Packages”,
>
> `use-package` looks out of place, since I don’t think it offers any
> facilities to download/install/update/uninstall packages.

This seems to have been well-discussed in replies. I’m inclined to leave it in
for now.

>>         MultiSelect(:package_repositories,
>
> NonGNU ELPA?

Added.

>>         MultiSelect(:theme, # people can use a light and dark theme
>
> The default theme is actually 2 themes (a dark one and a light one), so
> it would make more sense to split it into two (or otherwise to merge
> modus-operandi and modus-vivendi as well as solarized and solarized-dark).

Default has been split into -light and -dark variants.

>>         RadioSelect(:melpa_contribution,
>>             “Have you ever contributed to a Melpa package?”,
>>             [“No”, “Occasionaly”, “Frequently”]),
>
> [ BTW, last I checked it’s spelled “MELPA” and not “Melpa”.  Don’t know
>   if the MELPA guys care about the difference, tho.  ]
>
> Not sure what the question means, really: you can’t contribute via
> MELPA, and most packages are on MELPA, so if you contributed to an ELisp
> package, that contribution probably found its way to MELPA even if you
> never heard of it.

Mmm. I’ve changed this to the more general “contributed to an Emacs package?”.

> To a large extent the same holds for GNU ELPA, so maybe the distinction
> between “contributed to MELPA packages” vs “contributed to GNU ELPA
> packages” just doesn’t make much sense.

I think Emacs/ELPA are a little different with the ML process and FSF approval.

> Without knowing what you’re hoping to do with the result of that
> question it’s hard to know what to do with it, but maybe you’re rather
> interested to distinguish contributions via `M-x report-emacs-bug` or
> emacs-devel from contributions via things like merge requests on
> some forge?

My thinking here is that it could be interesting to see what the contributed
with/without using a mailing list and getting FSF approval ratio (i.e.
Emacs/ELPA) looks like, and particularly any shifts in it over time.

>>         RadioSelect(:has_donated,
>>             “Have you ever contributed financially to Emacs development (via the FSF)”,
>
> I think FSF membership does contribute (to a very small extent), so
> maybe you want to clarify whether you’d count this as a valid
> contribution or whether you’re thinking of more
> significant/targeted contributions?

The idea here is looking at financial contributions to Emacs, but I’m not sure
what would make the most sense. Perhaps it would be worth asking about donations
to package maintainers? I’d appreciate hearing other people’s thoughts on this.

>>              “Asosociate’s Degree” => “Asosociates”,
>
> I don’t know that one.  I’m tempted to say it’s a typo for “Associates”?

Neither do I, but apparently it’s a 2 year degree usually from a community
college, common in the US.

Yep, there’s a typo there. Fixed.

All the best,
Timothy