From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jean Louis Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Suggested experimental test Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 09:32:38 +0300 Message-ID: References: <9088e12cb3de3d30abf1@heytings.org> <8735wnjsum.fsf@gnus.org> <83sg4n9jei.fsf@gnu.org> <271290d7aac58f2f9e96@heytings.org> <83czvr9hvc.fsf@gnu.org> <271290d7aa69bbcaa204@heytings.org> <83lfae8fbg.fsf@gnu.org> <22aaf0fadd0894af49d9@heytings.org> <83v99i6ink.fsf@gnu.org> <22aaf0fadd0870c0e9f8@heytings.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="38753"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Mutt/2.0.6 (2021-03-06) Cc: Eli Zaretskii , larsi@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Gregory Heytings Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 24 07:34:55 2021 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 1lOx6V-0009xo-5V for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 07:34:55 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46130 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOx6U-0005wY-7s for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 02:34:54 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:39528) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOx5V-000560-9t for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 02:33:53 -0400 Original-Received: from stw1.rcdrun.com ([217.170.207.13]:60799) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lOx5S-0003ne-5g; Wed, 24 Mar 2021 02:33:52 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost ([::ffff:41.202.241.53]) (AUTH: PLAIN securesender, TLS: TLS1.3,256bits,ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384) by stw1.rcdrun.com with ESMTPSA id 000000000001E082.00000000605ADD48.0000360F; Tue, 23 Mar 2021 23:33:44 -0700 Mail-Followup-To: Gregory Heytings , Eli Zaretskii , larsi@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <22aaf0fadd0870c0e9f8@heytings.org> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=217.170.207.13; envelope-from=bugs@gnu.support; helo=stw1.rcdrun.com X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-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:266923 Archived-At: * Gregory Heytings [2021-03-23 20:53]: > IMO Emacs should aim at being fully usable, including all its > extensions, without ever having to edit configuration files manually > (and without restarting Emacs). >From that specific view point how you think Emacs should work that users ever edit configuration file manually, I do understand it. It would increase the usability of Emacs by beginners, but it would hide the configuration file which is program and software that users create. We have got butterfly effect in Emacs from where you and other people came to improve Emacs and created many other software. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect Because Emacs was never Android with "click and play" features, it created so many programmers. Because it is programmable Editor it helped many programmers to extend Emacs. Would we have all the features in Emacs by the system "Click and Play" very easy to go -- we would have less people collaborating on creating free software and also software extending Emacs. We can see that in example on Android devices where users are clueless, totally clueless that they can change, modify, create some software. They are not told so, they are shaped as consumers, used, who use applications and considered as number, not human, without any collaboration or participation in software. They have no idea what is Android, how it runs, how could they contribute, not even file bugs, few free software repositories help on that like F-Droid -- but from beginners' view point, software is too usable, but users may not even be aware that it is software, as all what they did is "click and play". It shaped our society to have largest number of computer users ever, also the largest number of programmers, but it made the worse ever ratio of number of programmers to number of computers! Emacs such as it is, is raising the number of programmers to the number of computers, as it gives incentives to users, incidentally or planned, to evaluate things, to work with other software, to configure this and that, and that is how programmers evolve. I would not be thus changing Emacs into situation where use is not supposed to think and create, as that situation we already have with Android and society of computer users who do not even know they are computer users. >From the general view point of Emacs usability for beginners, beginners use arrows, they move cursor, use mouse, insert letters, symbols and numbers, open and save files. Emacs is thus very user friendly. I was beginner, we all were beginners, was it difficult to open and save files, write files? It was never difficult to me. > Major and minor mode packages can define keys that work out of the box in > buffers in which these modes are enabled. I suppose everyone would agree > that asking users who install a foo-mode package to add > > (define-key foo-mode-map (kbd "") #'foo-mode-do-something) > > lines in their init configuration file (and to restart Emacs) before being > able to use foo-mode would be cumbersome. I am sure it may look cumbersome, but user installing it is not a beginner. If it is beginner, one will start looking into function definition, it is incitement to learn programming, and yields with new Emacs contributors and programmers making extensions for software. By hiding configurations, we would limit evolvement of number of programmers in future. One other good example of people becoming programmers by casual incitement is the scratch buffer. Removing it, would make less programmers. Providing scratch buffers in various languages, would make more programmers. Jean