Re: Emacs learning curve

["Óscar Fuentes" <ofv@wanadoo.es>]

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

>> For a long period of the PC era, Emacs was the king of the 
>> text editors for technical users.
>
> Really?  Don't let a vi user hear you claim that.  In my (anecdotal)
> experience, even in software research environments the number of vi
> users has at least equalled that of Emacs users.  And in software
> development I've seen even more vi use than in research.  I still do.

Read again what I wrote. There is no claim there about the number of
users Emacs had.

[snip]

> Behind or ahead, ahead or behind...  It's _not_ a popularity contest.
> Dunno why this popularity thing keeps coming up here (and on
> help-gnu-emacs) from time to time.

Some popularity is indispensable, unless you are happy with Emacs as a
private project.

[snip]

>> Nowadays Emacs lacks behind on productivity features
>
> Haven't we all agreed that Emacs could be improved by adding some of
> those productivity features?  And that is so even though we have not
> agreed that Emacs is "behind" generally.  But just what are the
> "productivity features" that we might like to add to Emacs?
>
> There you go again, slip-sliding from (1) "productivity features",
> which no one argues against and with some Eclipse features serving as
> oft-cited examples, to (2) the idea that the Emacs default key
> bindings need to be those that a newbie is already used to in other
> apps.

I didn't propose (2) as a must-have. I think that dismissing the
proposal arguing that "newbies keep coming" and "there is no proof of
people giving up on Emacs because the keybindings" is hand-waving.

With the keybindings issue, either you change them or you make an effort
and adapt the documentation so the newbie gets the message: "yes, we
know this is different from what you know and may be a pain at first,
but hang on, it will pay back."

[snip]

>> stay alive as living fossils just because the efforts of
>> some enthusiasts.
>
> Not to worry.  Emacs will be digging up your and my remains and
> chuckling about them, long, long after we - enthusiasts or not - have
> turned from living fossils to dead ones.
>
> The fact that you think that Emacs is "going the way of...a living
> fossil" shows how far out into the ozone you've wandered.

Oh, this is funny. I hope that you are connected enough with reality to
admit that the percentage of programmers using Emacs is dwindling. I
claim something stronger: the absolute number of people using Emacs is
decreasing too. No, no proof other than my personal, anecdotical
experience. Nor you have proof about the contrary. Now, you assume that
Emacs will be alive and kicking forever (like the PDP-10 OS?) and act
consequently (or rather, don't act.) I assume that Emacs' future is not
promising, and try to improve it. What attitude is best for Emacs?

(This reminds me so much of the climate change affaire.)

[snip]