From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Thibaut Verron Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:37:54 +0200 Message-ID: References: <20201011073553.GA6784@odonien.localdomain> <20201011120840.GC2923@protected.rcdrun.com> <20201011125031.GC6784@odonien.localdomain> <20201012050418.GZ2923@protected.rcdrun.com> <20201012062916.GB2923@protected.rcdrun.com> <20201012081602.GG2923@protected.rcdrun.com> Reply-To: thibaut.verron@gmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="29072"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: Richard Stallman , emacs-devel To: Jean Louis Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Mon Oct 12 10:38:53 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 1kRtM5-0007UK-ID for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:38:53 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54070 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kRtM4-0004ah-KX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Mon, 12 Oct 2020 04:38:52 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:54088) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kRtLO-0003eL-5J for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 12 Oct 2020 04:38:10 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-wr1-x443.google.com ([2a00:1450:4864:20::443]:39175) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:128) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kRtLM-0000IR-09; Mon, 12 Oct 2020 04:38:09 -0400 Original-Received: by mail-wr1-x443.google.com with SMTP id y12so12772201wrp.6; Mon, 12 Oct 2020 01:38:07 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:reply-to:from:date:message-id :subject:to:cc; bh=fU8qXr82BLoxZdQ+mBI61p1ankdXNz06KtPS/oOWSc0=; b=nUgZti63jnfeJo2T57s0fIqYY/VGD5XMuRaObmg07sOP1kavP5NZ2ZDo0ZhAFP32Ar 8v9+Kqx7nmWQrp21p2KSyT67Rik/66/9fNweKdxsmT1aEkS8BrXOC1vb1b3FfccSOTJB HjeT8C9J+ygruNPKK4tTU9DlY5yRiN7S6gFS3RbfXHuSy4ctwa7iMTWaNd7zxYkLTGNk tQH/djjs0bl/vfkG57M10IrNsTkY9xnEVaf85+nuM9D8RYerbYc8CrZEX9O5GxWgDPyQ IRhuG1fcWkv+yac8f9xLv+LYprC+RxdP2m6BF1u4rgvhpKVhHvFCigVMfYFQe54A+zMg zy5g== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:reply-to :from:date:message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=fU8qXr82BLoxZdQ+mBI61p1ankdXNz06KtPS/oOWSc0=; b=e7Gx59d73UAh2+4FT+4las6IBgW/EV175dZMU2nyqhXWby4VKLkFZo6O6C8A2IofUN PTeAsIGmwZM4+19NcH7uyAys4GVj2myu0P5oLxOPWSW2Sst9IDkDC4EA0Q22ySicuyIl F1IAwopR/uTKWClWhduC2fvN4FlaAD4vOB10bgGKX8W0ER3pMhXRPNu7NFRl8P/x2Hbr yNjfG9+RL4Vb2mdA21x/wWtaTeLae3CBEfOhQfCwcubGeRi6DUMOIQ65swbY1qSwyrbD ynlvx/RR0XE45+tzHQ5aATzf63UF70JyN4e7ZFdmpToM/OKd1c6KS08kRtAuDPO+tePY 9hQw== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM5326NtksWu2JE2n1KvXaH/d08qvlPEy8YonX89WZWMpPd8a2D86/ +O75tgpuR8oo+9dv/9TvHrrNwOxLhD0w0fkrTGM= X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJy6oWq4uJE5h1hZSv6uJrIH3AnOaidj2bXOcaZ/y/ltSEH66eIn3VeDAJE78KvOF3AUVt5eH4d6R7bhdHKxhes= X-Received: by 2002:adf:ea4d:: with SMTP id j13mr6161126wrn.345.1602491886070; Mon, 12 Oct 2020 01:38:06 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20201012081602.GG2923@protected.rcdrun.com> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=2a00:1450:4864:20::443; envelope-from=thibaut.verron@gmail.com; helo=mail-wr1-x443.google.com X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: No matching host in p0f cache. That's all we know. X-Spam_score_int: -20 X-Spam_score: -2.1 X-Spam_bar: -- X-Spam_report: (-2.1 / 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, 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:257454 Archived-At: > Spacemacs is configuration, it is also considered software, so also > for this is obvious that 20,000+ Microsoft Github users have given > star/like on Github, as that is what I understand when I read 20.7k+ > -- so it is obvious, that need not be asked, asking would be useless > compared to obvious statistical results. (Note, when I use the word > Microsoft in front of Github, it is used in the sense of warning.) I would think that those 20k are a gross underestimate, more on that below. (And I understood that.) > Unless Github statistics are fake, GNU Emacs developers can already > think why those 20,700+ users are using Spacemacs and think how to > improve Emacs in general. In my opinion there is no need to ask what > is obvious. There is need to act. The actual number is not obvious, beyond "at least 20k". > I know what you mean, especially for the reason that I have been doing > surveys with people on the phone, in person face to face, on the > street, and by visiting people at their homes, I have got paid for > making surveys, and I know how to evaluate surveys, and how to write > them properly. > > My answer to that proposal is same as Drew's, something like > implementation of the above menus in the Help. So only free form, no multiple choice, and permanently in Emacs? That's fine for me. The goal is then sensibly different from that of the suggested survey, and as you say, they are not mutually exclusive. > My opinion is maybe in that sense more "pushy" then what RMS wants, I > think that free software philosophy has to be pushy 10 times more than > it is now, as the increase of proprietary software and troublesame > abuses of people on this planet increased as well. > > > Okay, that is a valid point (although I would be interested to > > know if people still use Marmalade). But then we might as well drop > > the repository question altogether. > > I would drop all the questions, and just have it embedded in Emacs > Help menu for people to complain, suggest improvements, etc. System > already exists, but "Report Emacs bug" does not incite suggesting > improvements. Questions are useful to avoid writer paralysis though. There could be three systems: "answer survey" (with a few free-form questions to give inspiration), "send suggestion", "report bug". > > Of course. I would not trust the Microsoft Github data at all, and it > does not show logically to be true, here is short analysis: > > - we assume here that Spacemacs has 20700 stars/likes on Microsoft > Github, because it says so on the page. Does that mean those are > "users" of Spacemacs? Hard to believe, see below why. > > - if I open the main Spacemacs Github page, I can see that last > improvement on Spacemacs was 29th February 2020, there is not much > going on. But Spacemacs is appearing as first on Github for the > search word "emacs". Second is the emacs-mirror (and the first result for a google search "github emacs" for me). I don't know how github sorts its results, it is not just stars. > - I can see number of contributors, number is 562 contributors, there > are so many contributors but the last update was 29th February 2020, > maybe I am mistaken. So many contributors are counted as such if > they report a bug, they do not write software necessarily. I can see > very unrelated or mixture of bugs reported: > https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed Some branches are more recent, see for example buffertabs, last updated 2 weeks ago and 4k commits ahead of master. Apparently Github defines contributor as "has published to master" (possibly via a fork and pull-request?). The list of contributors is not visible beyond the top 100, but those 100 all have at least one commit on master. > It is untrue that 20700 stars mean there are so many users, people > click how they want and wish. Spacemacs is definitely not for > beginners, it is distributed from Git, so user must have and know how > to git pull or clone it. Are you sure about that? The website spacemacs.org has a big "download" button which serves a zipped copy of master. Does running spacemacs require knowledge from git after that point? Regardless, it is possible to run spacemacs without ever visiting the github page of the project, and github stars cannot track those. So even though some of those 20k stars are probably not users, or are no longer users, I still believe that the actual number of users may be way more than 20k. A properly conducted survey seems like a good way to get a better estimate of the actual number. But I agree that it is not a trivial task.