From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Idea for determining what users use Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 19:58:12 -0400 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1054166884 30439 80.91.224.249 (29 May 2003 00:08:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 00:08:04 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Thu May 29 02:08:03 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19LAxf-0007up-00 for ; Thu, 29 May 2003 02:08:03 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19LBC4-0005EE-00 for ; Thu, 29 May 2003 02:22:56 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19LAxq-0006T6-03 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Wed, 28 May 2003 20:08:14 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19LAsN-0004p2-1P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 28 May 2003 20:02:35 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19LApn-0004Dm-PN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 28 May 2003 19:59:57 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19LAo8-00031G-Pp for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 28 May 2003 19:58:12 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.20) id 19LAo8-0001Gd-Jv; Wed, 28 May 2003 19:58:12 -0400 Original-To: Thien-Thi Nguyen In-reply-to: (message from Thien-Thi Nguyen on 27 May 2003 10:39:23 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:14397 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:14397 knowing how ego-driven programmers are, i fear this would lead to lots of spam as every little (sub-)feature is instrumented so. I think you must have misunderstood the proposal. We will insert these calls when and where we want them. I can't see why we would have any problems as a result. Mail sent to emacs-features-used@gnu.org will just be dumped into a file. We will search the file when we want to search it. IMHO, it is better not to tie such a poll to any specific release, since a release is just a snapshot of various disparate albeit concurrent activities. It is impossible to avoid this. Whatever we put into the code, to indicate which functions etc. we are interested in, that thing will appear in certain Emacs releases and not others. Someone suggested "batching" these responses. That can't be done because you never know that the same user will encounter another one of these calls. The one he has encountered today may be the last one. It is also unnecessary, because these calls will be few and not frequent. We will put them in features for which we don't know of any users. Most users will not encounter any of them. Of those who encounter one, most will never encounter another. We know about surveys. This is not a survey.