From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Karl Fogel Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: More metaproblem Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 11:34:51 -0600 Message-ID: <87mw7257b8.fsf@ktab.red-bean.com> References: <20141203142859.24393.98673@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <20141203192721.GE12748@thyrsus.com> <547F6774.50700@cs.ucla.edu> <838uio5vjw.fsf@gnu.org> <20141203211447.GB15111@thyrsus.com> <871toge5zw.fsf@floss.red-bean.com> <83388v6hsq.fsf@gnu.org> <87egsftgd5.fsf@ktab.red-bean.com> <85ppbymn91.fsf@stephe-leake.org> Reply-To: Karl Fogel NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417800931 610 80.91.229.3 (5 Dec 2014 17:35:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 17:35:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stephen Leake Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 05 18:35:24 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwwmo-0007iS-NO for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 18:35:22 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51618 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwwmo-0001X7-CH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 12:35:22 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38605) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwwmV-0001Sa-Bk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 12:35:09 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwwmL-0000o3-9h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 12:35:03 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-ig0-x230.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4001:c05::230]:47446) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwwmL-0000nz-3m for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 12:34:53 -0500 Original-Received: by mail-ig0-f176.google.com with SMTP id l13so1231494iga.15 for ; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 09:34:52 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=sender:from:to:cc:subject:references:reply-to:date:in-reply-to :message-id:user-agent:mime-version:content-type; bh=VOstEAHnaZhJ1LtbQXBUeRQSPU6ezYkjBtaIlHuDqiA=; b=Ugz6aWlfiC+decMiFNEquk6InIPY3fAWSC7iSbXHcwGmFPaDO+lc6Djm9xpbBfrbFx NHLtpMnRnklEN1DIXPSdJ5323RKhA6hXl2/g6LBalGmWdV3AvI6NhaWqYi0aquUn8/Ls xPpsg0hIcw8TCgQihitGELe5jucV3bOgTb9IbrGFjPpwQfseY0G9jFOx5Q3YmojtL0Fj LUTZ3VQrr/91uL8tegjwX6pJPP6bwpBWxcqWEP/M1v0RyMbpg/1AcrEZryBSN0naDWHF yCEi9oI1c8jPNQqbb0hPzWigz5dScpDzlGDGw4jYu6gxoWeiLrlbgNVeEIJJfDReUb/g IcpA== X-Received: by 10.107.131.102 with SMTP id f99mr15748614iod.31.1417800892678; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 09:34:52 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from ktab.red-bean.com (74-92-190-113-Illinois.hfc.comcastbusiness.net. [74.92.190.113]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id a1sm16273821ioa.27.2014.12.05.09.34.51 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Fri, 05 Dec 2014 09:34:51 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <85ppbymn91.fsf@stephe-leake.org> (Stephen Leake's message of "Fri, 05 Dec 2014 03:58:34 -0600") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2607:f8b0:4001:c05::230 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:178958 Archived-At: Stephen Leake writes: >> It's not just a matter of contributing documentation. We don't even >> *have a place to put such documentation* right now. > >As others have pointed out, we do have such a place, but most people are >not aware of it. That needs to change, and I'm working on implementing >the changes suggested so far. Bravo to you! Thank you. I think a web page as the gateway is important, though: There needs to be place where a developer *who has not yet decided to contribute to Emacs* can land and quickly get an impression of how much work is involved, and what the nature of that work is. If that impression is only available from a place like etc/CONTRIBUTE, then we're effectively asking people to have made that decision before they've gotten the information they need to be able to make it. It can be maintained in the Emacs tree, but it needs to be published in a Web-standard way outside that tree (i.e., browsing to it in the web-based git repository browser would be a poor user experience). >Emacs was around long before "web pages". It has been slow to embrace >web pages, because it already has a culture that works well without >them. > >Perhaps that needs to change to attract new blood, but I'm not sure. >Emacs has a _very_ different feel than "typical" development >environments; using a unique development environment for creating Emacs >can ensure that is maintained. Even people who use Emacs for almost everything rarely use it as their primary web browser. A few do, but most don't. As I think across all the Emacs-first developers I know -- people like me who use Emacs as their shell, as their mailreader, as their primary development environment, as their primary text composition, and as their organizer via Org Mode -- they still use a dedicated browser like Firefox for browsing the web. (No doubt a few people here use Emacs as their primary web browser, but I'm pretty sure that's the exception, even among heavy Emacs users.) So for information that people typically expect to be on the Web, such as developer guidelines for contributing to a free software project, we'll be better off putting that on the Web. Because the people who need to read it the most, the people who are the most important to us -- proficient Emacs users who are *considering* becoming contributors but who have not decided yet -- will expect to find it on the Web anyway, and will most likely first read it in an environment other than Emacs. One solution would be to write those docs in (say) Markdown and autogenerate the HTML pages, so that reading them and editing them in Emacs is easy, but we still get HTML for the web site. -Karl