From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Po Lu Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: How to make Emacs popular again [or less square]. Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 17:00:40 +0800 Message-ID: <87ft72uvgn.fsf@yahoo.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35267"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: James Lu Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 28 11:05:05 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kMp5l-000931-4z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:05:05 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47848 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kMp5k-000880-7Y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 28 Sep 2020 05:05:04 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:43904) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kMp3q-0006mL-1n for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 28 Sep 2020 05:03:06 -0400 Original-Received: from sonic306-47.consmr.mail.ne1.yahoo.com ([66.163.189.109]:40193) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:128) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kMp3n-0000po-HQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 28 Sep 2020 05:03:05 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s2048; t=1601283780; bh=h2JMoG6MFKekC0XJKAWdwY7GNqfPZGS7mMldWdwccm0=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:References:Date:In-Reply-To:From:Subject; b=aWsAMX59AI3GG1l4v8NJygBgwBtgF0kpTk45dw3gS7o9tK/I2/FpjBqxWwzqbj4Dx1DhzLlFNnMLBBqFT3b5amKfjN9YYS5UnEI4xbmNZn6FSOx0BbPyX+2Xf0bP7DAZieXpYT3a+BIBVvKkG3iiOczqDr7N/KIZrPeIUt/hs+XydZqivsRwibMeUJwMtT7i3XYM7Lg0q/aj1oXsKROA+L3PaH3sAOsn8or41uLk+auRl2Tiiq42dQ9oV9Pck9qmZm+1VI+IpQFXS59aWUEWoicBqwVmuGRmgQbY5YPKsBaHblRa3dySPLcOaT/bsWU5SGRehgacupQOFlTrBgMKTw== X-YMail-OSG: whvhBSQVM1kFvyXJv7b_jydk8bXhb2gTAHbugBlqEazjRdGPJmVBH5f71BZJeDz nAnelpUaCdirgFyCq70f408L9SBuY7eKYnf.xoNaHWsVdscgfvGUzA6nHMQrvxnxYgmR_v0cLbRT l3MWd67Bc9bAR4aMknV7dhf.4J4Iu8K_nTzKa9AFvbHu1PMUs3v6dubK9jIxbnholmMMR_HSCk15 OZf4w._kxlHU1YvCJEjWrk_nqBxH4D2DFUy8YqM9Zu1Wnb2MNQvZ8USIUuAWGD7TrmAveAV5Smll X6PoFgC1H.TXAV.Ydg7r5fIi4nryNpNKFD9Nw.qTDSpEyhr_K7L_rm526LzQu98LdDlHS6mn5ogQ cAZv9pmANxucws7FBYFeKKUYk9UEA56gGp5LuKuKzfxGjyZHLj5pTv15aqX7XpYkjkeDLF0karI9 Z6u7Zy_hNsfyve1PxCjIusBhsIMga8jPKPDuNg.HxDsmDgX3ptiUV1ft58.m0hPkaRdabOxAh4Sx dZjJbHvbEYUydtLkIeQmlUjW0duHPG992awW9TjVNR8jQ8KjKoqzxtA3X0pnJUePADusJAY4Vzlz 2B3h4kd6UN_WusQqYdBrgHwA8FvCTskWe05gKl_C_TzlES00sYuo5OL0ui8EWHWcJa.63SthdX0o aAz8Geo5B1l6xm3sG7L8XVJgzOmH5yTHfTcCHdlnebKpee3Tet03H83mn1OIfftPPhKDJ4tHYJ5l tqxVflS2svBw3y49lP9XS6Wzyz4XL5mU8tS4cxLxIc0JPrsHiBGCDzHK5jbRiK5mdpfX6ssBB8NR cEjFp26AdDi5jaZ_1pLL_WAwYxG_lVXVFS4F_BMKhN Original-Received: from sonic.gate.mail.ne1.yahoo.com by sonic306.consmr.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with HTTP; Mon, 28 Sep 2020 09:03:00 +0000 Original-Received: by smtp402.mail.sg3.yahoo.com (VZM Hermes SMTP Server) with ESMTPA ID 52648c233782a86f30b70f1dc5351d82; Mon, 28 Sep 2020 09:00:58 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: (James Lu's message of "Sat, 26 Sep 2020 09:38:18 -0400") X-Mailer: WebService/1.1.16674 mail.backend.jedi.jws.acl:role.jedi.acl.token.atz.jws.hermes.yahoo Apache-HttpAsyncClient/4.1.4 (Java/11.0.7) Received-SPF: pass client-ip=66.163.189.109; envelope-from=luangruo@yahoo.com; helo=sonic306-47.consmr.mail.ne1.yahoo.com X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: First seen = 2020/09/28 05:03:00 X-ACL-Warn: Detected OS = Linux 3.11 and newer [fuzzy] X-Spam_score_int: -25 X-Spam_score: -2.6 X-Spam_bar: -- X-Spam_report: (-2.6 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_AU=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_EF=-0.1, FREEMAIL_FROM=0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE=-0.0001, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H2=-0.462, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-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:256577 Archived-At: James Lu writes: > I am a new (2020 started) Emacs user. Welcome to the club. > Sell customer support packages, so > 1) You can focus on gaining users = giving more users computer user > freedom and user empowerment. There are a few GNU projects that actually do this, usually by outsourcing the support to a separate organization or having the maintainer provide support himself (notably Octave and GNAT), but for a pretty complicated set of reasons I don't really think this can apply to Emacs, which AFAIK is not employed in any large commercial context, or used by the sort of people who are actually interested in expensive support packages. > 2) You can better understand the problems with Emacs' documentation > and user interface because people will email you support questions on > them, incentivizing you to reduce how many support queries are needed. > User experience testing. a la Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Path > dependence-- sequence points > matter. https://kwokchain.com/2020/06/19/why-figma-wins/ There was another thread talking about this from a while back (feel free to search 'Why is Emacs so square?' in the mailing list archives), which did actually talk about some user experience improvements. Some of the ideas were fairly good (such as improving the appalling icons in gud.el, suggesting packages when opening various files), while others were not really practical (for instance drastically changing the defaults, and moving the existing defaults to a "vanilla-mode"). It would be a terrible waste of time if that particular discussion was repeated here.