From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sivaram Neelakantan Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Apologia for bzr Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 19:39:17 +0530 Message-ID: <87txdh42ya.fsf@gmail.com> References: <20140103152117.GA16679@c3po> <20140104082857.GA22010@thyrsus.com> <20140105205645.GA12781@thyrsus.com> <87r48m2is1.fsf@mid.deneb.enyo.de> <929DF82A-EF65-415B-84E1-46F23057CDB7@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=gb2312 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1389017387 26006 80.91.229.3 (6 Jan 2014 14:09:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 14:09:47 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 06 15:09:53 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 1W0AsJ-0007iP-Ow for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:09:51 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35212 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W0AsJ-0002Mn-9u for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 09:09:51 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48780) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W0As9-0002IM-LG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 09:09:48 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W0As2-0007w5-AW for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 09:09:41 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:57279) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W0As2-0007vz-3P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 09:09:34 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1W0As0-00072O-4h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:09:32 +0100 Original-Received: from 122.166.156.244 ([122.166.156.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:09:32 +0100 Original-Received: from nsivaram.net by 122.166.156.244 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:09:32 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 35 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 122.166.156.244 User-Mail-Address: nsivaram.net@gmail.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.130007 (Ma Gnus v0.7) Emacs/24.3 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:vecRgjBioR4AWO74/5jkkRXvbDQ= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:167460 Archived-At: On Mon, Jan 06 2014,Stefan Monnier wrote: >> On the other hand, I¡¯ve showed emacs to a very large number of new college >> students over the years, both programmers and non. The keybindings are >> confusing to many people. People who accidentally split-window are very >> confused. Nobody was ever confused by the location of the modeline, and it¡¯s >> normal for common apps like web browsers to have a ¡°Status Bar¡± down there. > > That corresponds to my experience. The main sources of trouble, AFAICT are: > - window management: > - how to get rid of a window (e.g. when *Help* introduced a split). > - how to get back to a buffer that was somehow buried. > - keybindings like C-a, C-x, C-c, C-v > - naming (things like windows, frames, kill, yank). > Speaking as an Emacs user, I don't understand this line of reasoning. The same logic above could be applied to vi/vim, any programming language at all. I ran into the same issues above and I got help from this list or from the docs and even rereading the tutorial. What's the issue with new users nowadays? All the definitions are there in the manual...erm...somewhere but there. Back in high school in India, I took French as an optional language to learn. Flunked badly. And my teacher had only one thing to say to me "Stop thinking in your native language when learning another language" which I think is the only way to gain a reasonable fluency in using Emacs i.e. learn Emacs concepts/terminology before proceeding. And the Tutorial is more than adequate for the purpose. sivaram --