Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Jambunathan K]

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FrequentlyEnabledPackages_Emacs244_Survey

I will make an announcement on user list, once we get a near-stable set
 of packages/modes on that list.

Re: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Jambunathan K]

Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:

> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FrequentlyEnabledPackages_Emacs244_Survey
>
> I will make an announcement on user list, once we get a near-stable set
>  of packages/modes on that list.

Survey trend after 89 users.

I have drawn lines at 50%, 25%, 12.5% levels.  There are duplicate
entries (for eg., ido-mode and ido-everywhere).

Exercise judgement in interpreting the results.

#+CONSTANTS: N=89
| Packages/Modes            | Upvote / User count |  % |
|---------------------------+---------------------+----|
| uniquify                  |                  64 | 71 |
| column-number-mode        |                  62 | 69 |
| show-paren-mode           |                  60 | 67 |
| ido-mode                  |                  55 | 61 |
| transient-mark-mode       |                  45 | 50 |
|---------------------------+---------------------+----|
| ibuffer                   |                  43 | 48 |
| blink-cursor-mode         |                  40 | 44 |
| flyspell-mode             |                  39 | 43 |
| recentf-mode              |                  36 | 40 |
| eldoc-mode                |                  35 | 39 |
| dired-x                   |                  31 | 34 |
| line-number-mode          |                  30 | 33 |
| windmove                  |                  30 | 33 |
| winner-mode               |                  30 | 33 |
| font-lock-mode            |                  29 | 32 |
| auto-fill-mode            |                  27 | 30 |
| global-font-lock-mode     |                  27 | 30 |
| ido-everywhere            |                  27 | 30 |
| abbrev-mode               |                  26 | 29 |
| org-mode                  |                  24 | 26 |
| delete-selection-mode     |                  23 | 25 |
| saveplace                 |                  23 | 25 |
|---------------------------+---------------------+----|
| which-function-mode       |                  20 | 22 |
| desktop-save-mode         |                  19 | 21 |
| hippie-exp                |                  19 | 21 |
| savehist-mode             |                  19 | 21 |
| server-mode               |                  19 | 21 |
| display-time-mode         |                  17 | 19 |
| imenu                     |                  15 | 16 |
| global-subword-mode       |                  13 | 14 |
| size-indication-mode      |                  13 | 14 |
| cua-selection-mode        |                  12 | 13 |
| dired-hide-details-mode   |                  12 | 13 |
| icomplete-mode            |                  12 | 13 |
| org-capture               |                  12 | 13 |
| tooltip-mode              |                  12 | 13 |
|---------------------------+---------------------+----|
| auto-encryption-mode      |                  11 | 12 |
| tramp                     |                  11 | 12 |
| cua-mode                  |                  10 | 11 |
| subword-mode              |                  10 | 11 |
| electric-indent-mode      |                   9 | 10 |
| ffap                      |                   9 | 10 |
| file-name-shadow-mode     |                   9 | 10 |
| global-linum-mode         |                   9 | 10 |
| hs-minor-mode             |                   9 | 10 |
| kill-whole-line           |                   9 | 10 |
| linum-mode                |                   9 | 10 |
| reftex-mode               |                   9 | 10 |
| electric-pair-mode        |                   8 |  8 |
| global-hl-line-mode       |                   8 |  8 |
| auto-composition-mode     |                   7 |  7 |
| auto-compression-mode     |                   7 |  7 |
| compilation-minor-mode    |                   7 |  7 |
| global-auto-revert-mode   |                   7 |  7 |
| ispell-minor-mode         |                   7 |  7 |
| mouse-wheel-mode          |                   7 |  7 |
| edebug-mode               |                   6 |  6 |
| global-whitespace-mode    |                   6 |  6 |
| visible-bell              |                   6 |  6 |
| cl                        |                   5 |  5 |
| global-hi-lock-mode       |                   5 |  5 |
| org-src-mode              |                   5 |  5 |
| bs-show                   |                   4 |  4 |
| iswitchb-mode             |                   4 |  4 |
| shell-dirtrack-mode       |                   4 |  4 |
| visual-line-mode          |                   4 |  4 |
| auto-image-file-mode      |                   3 |  3 |
| delete-by-moving-to-trash |                   3 |  3 |
| epa-file-enable           |                   3 |  3 |
| generic-x                 |                   3 |  3 |
| global-cwarn-mode         |                   3 |  3 |
| hide-ifdef-mode           |                   3 |  3 |
| mouse-avoidance-mode      |                   3 |  3 |
| rectangle-mark-mode       |                   3 |  3 |
| electric-layout-mode      |                   2 |  2 |
| orgstruct++-mode          |                   2 |  2 |
| orgtbl-mode               |                   2 |  2 |
| reveal-mode               |                   2 |  2 |
| semantic-mode             |                   2 |  2 |
| whitespace-mode           |                   2 |  2 |
| auto-completion-mode      |                   1 |  1 |
| autoinsert                |                   1 |  1 |
| descr-text                |                   1 |  1 |
| erc-mode                  |                   1 |  1 |
| outline-minor-mode        |                   1 |  1 |
| pc-selection-mode         |                   1 |  1 |
| printing                  |                   1 |  1 |
| url-handler-mode          |                   1 |  1 |
#+TBLFM: $3= 100.0 * $2/ $N; %d;

Re: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Michael Albinus]

Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:

Hi,

> Exercise judgement in interpreting the results.
>
> | Packages/Modes            | Upvote / User count |  % |
> |---------------------------+---------------------+----|
> | tramp                     |                  11 | 12 |

Tramp is part of the Emacs distribution, and it is enabled by
`file-name-handler-alist'. Does this figure mean, 11 users are not aware
of? Or does this mean, just 11 of 89 users wish to see Tramp?

I don't understand this figure.

Best regards, Michael.

RE: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Drew Adams]

> > Exercise judgement in interpreting the results.

;-)

> > | Packages/Modes            | Upvote / User count |  % |
> > |---------------------------+---------------------+----|
> > | tramp                     |                  11 | 12 |
> 
> Tramp is part of the Emacs distribution, and it is enabled by
> `file-name-handler-alist'. Does this figure mean, 11 users are not aware
> of? Or does this mean, just 11 of 89 users wish to see Tramp?
> 
> I don't understand this figure.

Good question.  The instructions say to increment the count for
a given feature if you use it.  There is no instruction regarding
decrementing.  But the instructions have been ignored or
misinterpreted more than once, so far.

My guess would be that in this case 11 people out of those
participating are (a) aware of Tramp and (b) wanted to mention
that they use it and find it useful.  I would *not* assume that
those who did not increment the Tramp counter are (c) unaware
of it or (d) do not find it useful.

Another thing to consider is that the table was empty to start
with, and different entries appeared at different points, when
someone thought to add them.

So, e.g., if the first person happened to add feature `blah'
to the list, then subsequent "voters" saw `blah' and considered
it.  If `floop' was not added until much later (for whatever
reason), subsequent voters did not see `floop' until then.

It is what it is.

RE: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Drew Adams]

> But the instructions have been ignored or misinterpreted more
> than once, so far.

Now there's a superfluous "so far"!  It's not likely that with
additional voters this will drop below 2. ;-)

Re: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Jambunathan K]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> Another thing to consider is that the table was empty to start
> with, and different entries appeared at different points, when
> someone thought to add them.

Actually, it was seeded with my .emacs + Tom's initial list + Andrew's
list - 1 vote for each of the features.

> So, e.g., if the first person happened to add feature `blah'
> to the list, then subsequent "voters" saw `blah' and considered
> it.  If `floop' was not added until much later (for whatever
> reason), subsequent voters did not see `floop' until then.

It was for this reason that at around the time when the participant
count stood at 17, I added a list of all major and minor modes (by
rgrepping for define-derived-mode and define-minor-mode in the src
tree).  It was generally felt by others that such a big and
comprehensive list would actually drive people away.  (This reasoning is
perfeclty understandable.)

I have dumped the list of major and minor modes in to a separate page of
it's own.  There are around 244 minor modes and 293 major/derived modes.
See

     http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/List_Of_Major_And_Minor_Modes

I couldn't think of any good reason why such a list would be useful.  I
generated the list and I felt why not save it for posterity?

> It is what it is.

Sure it is.  It is Emacs users telling how they relate to their Emacs.

Re: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Matthias Meulien]

 
> (...) There are around 244 minor modes and 293 major/derived 
> modes. 

Note that `visual-line-mode' appears twice!
-- 
Matthias

Re: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Rüdiger Sonderfeld]

On Sunday 08 December 2013 14:56:55 Michael Albinus wrote:
> Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:
> > Exercise judgement in interpreting the results.
> > 
> > | Packages/Modes            | Upvote / User count |  % |
> > |
> > |---------------------------+---------------------+----|
> > |
> > | tramp                     |                  11 | 12 |
> 
> Tramp is part of the Emacs distribution, and it is enabled by
> `file-name-handler-alist'. Does this figure mean, 11 users are not aware
> of? Or does this mean, just 11 of 89 users wish to see Tramp?

The problem is that everybody started to mark and add features at different 
points.  I wouldn't really worry whether this represents actual usage for a 
default enabled feature.  I didn't increase tramp (I think) and it probably 
wasn't even on the list when I voted.  But I'm a regular tramp user.

The format of the survey is not really optimal.  I guess a better way would 
have been to use a piece of elisp to collect the data.  Similar to what the 
org-mode folks did in their survey.  But anyway the survey is probably good 
enough to consider the first 5 to 10 data points.  Which is probably all that 
matters for the actual question at hand.

I'd say the survey suggests that `column-number-mode' and `show-paren-mode' 
(maybe `recentf-mode') should be enabled as default.  `ido-mode' is popular 
but changes the behaviour to drastically to be a default imo.

Regards,
Rüdiger

Re: Frequently Enabled Packages - Emacs-24.4 survey (Please participate)

[Jambunathan K]

Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:

>> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FrequentlyEnabledPackages_Emacs244_Survey
>>
>> I will make an announcement on user list, once we get a near-stable set
>>  of packages/modes on that list.
>
> Survey trend after 89 users.

Creating a xref to the other thread.

For results after 120 users, see

    http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/166539

Permalink:

   http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FrequentlyEnabledPackages_Emacs244_Survey_Results