* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers
@ 2020-04-27 17:50 ndame
2020-04-27 18:07 ` Arthur Miller
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 27+ messages in thread
From: ndame @ 2020-04-27 17:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Emacs developers
> The article is here:
>
> https://download.blender.org/documentation/pdf/LXF204.feat_3d.5cjt.pdf
That's not it, google found a version, some excerpts:
"Blender developers – would defend the software’s defiantly idiosyncratic UI on the grounds that ‘different doesn’t always mean worse’. Blender could do everything that other 3D packages could, they argued, and given a little time, it was possible to adapt your old working methods to a new combination of icons, keyboard shortcuts and menu commands. But for artists working in visual effects or game development – notoriously high-pressure industries, particularly when deadlines are looming – time is at a premium. Many people who might otherwise have loved Blender got no further than its splash screen"
...
"Others struck at the heart of Blender veterans’ sense of identity and even their muscle memory. In almost every other 3D application, you leftclick to select things. In Blender, prior to 2.80, you rightclicked by default. Supporters argued that it made for a faster, more precise workflow – but it was also alien to artists coming to Blender from other software."
...
https://www.pressreader.com/australia/linux-format/20191217/281745566267591
There are obvious similarities with Emacs' current situation.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-04-27 17:50 Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers ndame @ 2020-04-27 18:07 ` Arthur Miller 2020-04-28 0:13 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-04-30 2:26 ` Richard Stallman 2 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-04-27 18:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ndame; +Cc: Emacs developers ndame <ndame@protonmail.com> writes: >> The article is here: >> >> https://download.blender.org/documentation/pdf/LXF204.feat_3d.5cjt.pdf > > That's not it, google found a version, some excerpts: > > "Blender developers – would defend the software’s defiantly idiosyncratic UI on > the grounds that ‘different doesn’t always mean worse’. Blender could do > everything that other 3D packages could, they argued, and given a little time, > it was possible to adapt your old working methods to a new combination of icons, > keyboard shortcuts and menu commands. But for artists working in visual effects > or game development – notoriously high-pressure industries, particularly when > deadlines are looming – time is at a premium. Many people who might otherwise > have loved Blender got no further than its splash screen" > > ... > > "Others struck at the heart of Blender veterans’ sense of identity and even > their muscle memory. In almost every other 3D application, you leftclick to > select things. In Blender, prior to 2.80, you rightclicked by default. > Supporters argued that it made for a faster, more precise workflow – but it was > also alien to artists coming to Blender from other software." > > ... > > > https://www.pressreader.com/australia/linux-format/20191217/281745566267591 > > > > There are obvious similarities with Emacs' current situation. The link from ndame links to is the correct article. I didn't know it was avialable online. I forgott to say unfortunately, I am sorry; Linux Format is a payed printed magazine, so you have to either be a subscriber to read the full article online, or to buy a paper copy of the magazine. I think it is worth, but it's a personal choice. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-04-27 17:50 Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers ndame 2020-04-27 18:07 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-04-28 0:13 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-04-30 2:26 ` Richard Stallman 2 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-04-28 0:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ndame, Emacs developers On 27.04.2020 20:50, ndame wrote: > >> The article is here: >> >> https://download.blender.org/documentation/pdf/LXF204.feat_3d.5cjt.pdf > > That's not it, google found a version, some excerpts: Yeah, the above is a 5-year old article. But it was interesting too, and especially the emphasis on animators generally needing dedicated training to start being productive. > "Blender developers – would defend the software’s defiantly idiosyncratic UI on the grounds that ‘different doesn’t always mean worse’. Blender could do everything that other 3D packages could, they argued, and given a little time, it was possible to adapt your old working methods to a new combination of icons, keyboard shortcuts and menu commands. But for artists working in visual effects or game development – notoriously high-pressure industries, particularly when deadlines are looming – time is at a premium. Many people who might otherwise have loved Blender got no further than its splash screen" > > ... > > "Others struck at the heart of Blender veterans’ sense of identity and even their muscle memory. In almost every other 3D application, you leftclick to select things. In Blender, prior to 2.80, you rightclicked by default. Supporters argued that it made for a faster, more precise workflow – but it was also alien to artists coming to Blender from other software." > > ... > > > https://www.pressreader.com/australia/linux-format/20191217/281745566267591 That's a very good read. Another quote, not much relevant for Emacs, but it could make for a good promo material for FSF: “We don’t see open source as free. We see it as free-ing,” says Bell. “You could certainly save money if you wanted to, but I see it as an opportunity to take a portion of the budget and redirect it to our core software. We truly hope that others will take the development work we’ve put in and push it further.” > There are obvious similarities with Emacs' current situation. I also see a lot of parallels between the programs themselves. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-04-27 17:50 Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers ndame 2020-04-27 18:07 ` Arthur Miller 2020-04-28 0:13 ` Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-04-30 2:26 ` Richard Stallman 2020-04-30 5:58 ` ndame 2 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2020-04-30 2:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ndame; +Cc: emacs-devel [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > https://www.pressreader.com/australia/linux-format/20191217/281745566267591 That page doesn't contain the article, only nonfree Javascript code which we should not lead people to run. > That's not it, google found a version, some excerpts: Since you read the article, could you tell us in which year Blender changed interfaces? And can someone find, somewhere, a list of what the changes were, and show us that list? -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-04-30 2:26 ` Richard Stallman @ 2020-04-30 5:58 ` ndame 2020-05-02 2:21 ` Richard Stallman 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: ndame @ 2020-04-30 5:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: rms@gnu.org; +Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > > Since you read the article, could you tell us in which year Blender > changed interfaces? In version 2.80 in 2019. The relevant part: A game-changing release When Roosendaal first proposed Blender 2.80 in 2015, it was as a “workflow release” – a chance to stop focusing on new features for a while in favour of bigger structural goals. At the time, he thought the work might take “9-12 months”. It turned out it would take three years longer. But those extra years would buy the Blender Foundation time to address some of the real drawbacks in the software: issues that prevented artists used to commercial 3D applications from switching over to Blender. The biggest was the user interface. Before 2.80, diehard Blender users – including many Blender developers – would defend the software’s defiantly idiosyncratic UI on the grounds that ‘different doesn’t always mean worse’. Blender could do everything that other 3D packages could, they argued, and given a little time, it was possible to adapt your old working methods to a new combination of icons, keyboard shortcuts and menu commands. But for artists working in visual effects or game development – notoriously high-pressure industries, particularly when deadlines are looming – time is at a premium. Many people who might otherwise have loved Blender got no further than its splash screen. Some of the changes made in Blender 2.80 were cosmetic: the interface has a more industry-standard dark grey colour scheme, designed to prevent it from drawing the user’s eye away from the 3D scene on display in the viewport. Others struck at the heart of Blender veterans’ sense of identity and even their muscle memory. In almost every other 3D application, you leftclick to select things. In Blender, prior to 2.80, you rightclicked by default. Supporters argued that it made for a faster, more precise workflow – but it was also alien to artists coming to Blender from other software. Other changes were intended specifically to help artists make that transition. A toggleable ‘keymap’ switched Blender’s keyboard shortcuts from their traditional settings to ones more familiar to users of other 3D applications: tools like Pixologic’s Zbrush, used for sculpting organic characters, Autodesk’s Maya, used for general-purpose modelling and animation, and Sidefx’s Houdini, used for creating physically based effects like fire, water and smoke. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-04-30 5:58 ` ndame @ 2020-05-02 2:21 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-02 2:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ndame; +Cc: emacs-devel [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > A game-changing release Thanks for showing us that. I see the logic of this -- but I think that trying to do this with Emacs would be a more drastic UI change than the one Blender made, because the keyboard is the principal interface rather than a secondary one. At the same time I don't think we could get a lot of boost in usags from it. Blender was the only libre video editing program competing with proprietary programs which, as a side issue, very expensive too. By contrast, there are already other libre text editors. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 2:21 ` Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 15:59 ` Dmitry Gutov ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 15:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Stallman; +Cc: emacs-devel, ndame Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > > A game-changing release > > Thanks for showing us that. > > I see the logic of this -- but I think that trying to do this with > Emacs would be a more drastic UI change than the one Blender made, > because the keyboard is the principal interface rather than a > secondary one. Hope you don't take it personal but you are wrong about keyboard in 3D applications. Both keyboard and mouse are primary input methods, and 3D modellers/animators etc are very religious about their workflow and habits. They are very habitual creatures to their shorctuts, just like Emacs users. > Emacs would be a more drastic UI change than the one Blender made, Njah, they rewrote their GUI code almost completely. But anyway, would that necessary be a bad thing? You can still have Emacs traditional/classic/call-it-whatever mode and other modes that emulate other text editors. It already exists in Emacs, that is what evil & co does, there is CUA-mode etc. Back in times, 1970-something, when you and your friends created Emacs, there were probably no standard, world-wide, applicaiton-wide terminology, workflow etc. At least it was different from what it is today. Emacs is, like Blender, an application made before certain standards even existed, but the world has changed, standards/habits has become established and they are somewhat different than what Emacs uses. It is just a surface anyway, and I am quite sure that veterans used to Emacs would have no difficult time to keep their habits even if Emacs changed some default terminology, shortcuts, looks and even interaction mode. I know it is beating a dead horse, I have seen it being brought up different times since I have started to use Emacs back in year '99 or there around. It is just my personal opinion. > At the same time I don't think we could get a lot of boost in usags > from it. Why? If you offerered a more polished "in-time" version of Emacs, I believe Emacs is still superior as a tool to other editors/tools. Emacs has quite some features that can be or are "killer" features, that just has to be exposed a tad bit more. Shell/mail/dired/org are probably ones, also a concept, search inteface to anything in Emacs (pun intended - I think of anything/Helm as interaction model), easy and tight integration with other tools and probably more. All those things are already explorable and adaptable, ready to use, but they need (somewhat) painfull and tedious assembling into the final experience. Most people not familiar with Emacs are probably not aware how to use it in more advanced way then just as a text editor with "strange" keyboard shortcuts. They don't know what is available, what they need to setup, and how, to get their imagined interaction model, wofrklow, etc (iff they even have something already imagined). I think Emacs is great, and choice is great! I value freedom foremost. But as it is now, for many of modern features, choice is mandatory. Emacs is already super-adaptable, it just needs a little bit more stuff pre-integrated, turned on, and made a part of it and currage to make a decision. Yes I love freedom, and I love to be able to tailor it to my choice, but while I can make my choice between completion frameworks, visual parts, shortcuts etc, people new to it have to look up all that stuff, learn about it, search, spend time on configuring, testing configuration and so on. It is that time consuming part that lots of folks don't wanna do for various reasons. It takes time to learn what to setup and how to set it up. Many people are not willing or simply can't spend that time.Many don't even care, they just want to have something they can use. If their reserved words are blue or green, or if symbol names are complited by language server or something else, they probably don't care, people usually want just somethigni that works. Make some more default choices, add some more modern functionality out of the box, and let those who does not like defaults just re-configure to whatever they want, they probably already do it anyway. Question is also do you want those people who are unvilling to scratch the surface and deep-dive into Emacs and spend time to learn it and configure it, to use Emacs? Well why not? More users means more momentum, more people contributing, more cash to FSF (maybe :-)) etc, which results in Emacs and other FSF software been even better, world realizing the power of open source (I think it already did) and generaly promoting the FSF/Gnu ideals? I believe that Emacs was, and probably still is the most advanced of libre editors. Actually I don't see Emacs as a text editor longer, but rather as a usefull tool for my every day computer interaction. As a note, I know starter kits like Spacemacs, Prelude & Co are out there, but somehow that does not seem to cut it. > By contrast, there are already other libre text editors. Why is that an argument if there are other libre text editors? Blender was free to use for a long time before it become widely adopted. It wasn't the kostenloss that made it widely adopted, it was when they turned it into more in-time-with-standards (in combination with kostenloss) that seems to helped most with wider adoption. By the way, isn't evolution about adaptation? I mean even software has to adapt, otherwise it becomes obsolete. When we speak about Emacs and adoption, I think Emacs has actually got a revival, compared to how I saw it used for 20 years ago, I think it is quite a lot life about Emacs nowdays. There are people blogging, doing videos, reddit seems quite active, the mailing list has become likea spam :-), I don't remember it was active like this before, people are writing new packages and so on. But compared to some other, slightly less free offerings Emacs is not the most used/widespread tool. Yet :-). Of course I dont' have any statistics, it is just a feeling I have, a speculation based on what I see people talking about on the Internet. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 15:59 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-05-02 17:00 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 16:25 ` ndame ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-05-02 15:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller, Richard Stallman; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel On 02.05.2020 18:52, Arthur Miller wrote: > When we speak about Emacs and adoption, I think Emacs has actually got a > revival, compared to how I saw it used for 20 years ago, I think it is > quite a lot life about Emacs nowdays. There are people blogging, doing > videos, reddit seems quite active, the mailing list has become likea > spam:-), I don't remember it was active like this before, people are > writing new packages and so on. Was it package.el that did this? It sounds like the most likely culprit. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 15:59 ` Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-05-02 17:00 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 18:20 ` Dmitry Gutov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 17:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Dmitry Gutov; +Cc: ndame, Richard Stallman, emacs-devel Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> writes: > On 02.05.2020 18:52, Arthur Miller wrote: >> When we speak about Emacs and adoption, I think Emacs has actually got a >> revival, compared to how I saw it used for 20 years ago, I think it is >> quite a lot life about Emacs nowdays. There are people blogging, doing >> videos, reddit seems quite active, the mailing list has become likea >> spam:-), I don't remember it was active like this before, people are >> writing new packages and so on. > > Was it package.el that did this? It sounds like the most likely culprit. I don't know; probably; it certainly helped. Melpa and github maybe have a fingers there too. Maybe also millenial kids used to computers in the look for customizable/better software? Need to work with "cloud" (AWS/Azure) as well as with other devices (IoS/Android), probably made some people switch to certain Unix like OS, or at least to work with console which exposed them to terminal editors? I don't know, but it seems like both Vi(m) & Emacs have got a revival lately. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 17:00 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 18:20 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-05-02 18:55 ` Arthur Miller 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-05-02 18:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: ndame, Richard Stallman, emacs-devel On 02.05.2020 20:00, Arthur Miller wrote: > I don't know, but it > seems like both Vi(m) & Emacs have got a revival lately. That's true for FOSS editors in general, though. We didn't have so many good options before. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 18:20 ` Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-05-02 18:55 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 21:16 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) Stefan Monnier 2020-05-04 3:05 ` Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers Richard Stallman 0 siblings, 2 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 18:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Dmitry Gutov; +Cc: ndame, Richard Stallman, emacs-devel Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> writes: > On 02.05.2020 20:00, Arthur Miller wrote: >> I don't know, but it >> seems like both Vi(m) & Emacs have got a revival lately. > > That's true for FOSS editors in general, though. We didn't have so many good > options before. Indeed, seems as a general trend, we have never had so much FOSS software in general, not just editos, but everything, from AI research to Game Engines, 3D Editors, compilers, libraries, you name it. Seems like world has realized power of open source, which is great. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) 2020-05-02 18:55 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 21:16 ` Stefan Monnier 2020-05-02 21:46 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software Arthur Miller 2020-05-03 23:27 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) chad 2020-05-04 3:05 ` Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers Richard Stallman 1 sibling, 2 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Stefan Monnier @ 2020-05-02 21:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel, Richard Stallman, Dmitry Gutov >>> I don't know, but it >>> seems like both Vi(m) & Emacs have got a revival lately. >> That's true for FOSS editors in general, though. We didn't have so many good >> options before. > Indeed, seems as a general trend, we have never had so much FOSS > software in general, not just editos, but everything, from AI research > to Game Engines, 3D Editors, compilers, libraries, you name it. Seems > like world has realized power of open source, which is great. Sadly, I believe this only applies to a particular subset of the uses of computers. Maybe we could describe it as the subset that applies to desktop computers. In the tablet/phone world, Free Software is not nearly as prevalent (instead, in that sphere, the most prevalent is freeware which is a name that mostly disappeared, replaced by the name "free software"). Stefan ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: [OFFTOPIC] Free Software 2020-05-02 21:16 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) Stefan Monnier @ 2020-05-02 21:46 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-03 23:27 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) chad 1 sibling, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 21:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Stefan Monnier; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel, Richard Stallman, Dmitry Gutov Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes: >>>> I don't know, but it >>>> seems like both Vi(m) & Emacs have got a revival lately. >>> That's true for FOSS editors in general, though. We didn't have so many good >>> options before. >> Indeed, seems as a general trend, we have never had so much FOSS >> software in general, not just editos, but everything, from AI research >> to Game Engines, 3D Editors, compilers, libraries, you name it. Seems >> like world has realized power of open source, which is great. > > Sadly, I believe this only applies to a particular subset of the uses > of computers. Maybe we could describe it as the subset that applies to > desktop computers. In the tablet/phone world, Free Software is > not nearly as prevalent (instead, in that sphere, the most prevalent is > freeware which is a name that mostly disappeared, replaced by the name > "free software"). > > > Stefan True. I did have desktop software in mind when I wrote that. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) 2020-05-02 21:16 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) Stefan Monnier 2020-05-02 21:46 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-03 23:27 ` chad 1 sibling, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: chad @ 2020-05-03 23:27 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Stefan Monnier Cc: EMACS development team, Dmitry Gutov, Richard Stallman, Arthur Miller, ndame [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2182 bytes --] On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 2:17 PM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote: > >>> I don't know, but it > >>> seems like both Vi(m) & Emacs have got a revival lately. > >> That's true for FOSS editors in general, though. We didn't have so many > good > >> options before. > > Indeed, seems as a general trend, we have never had so much FOSS > > software in general, not just editos, but everything, from AI research > > to Game Engines, 3D Editors, compilers, libraries, you name it. Seems > > like world has realized power of open source, which is great. > > Sadly, I believe this only applies to a particular subset of the uses > of computers. Maybe we could describe it as the subset that applies to > desktop computers. In the tablet/phone world, Free Software is > not nearly as prevalent (instead, in that sphere, the most prevalent is > freeware which is a name that mostly disappeared, replaced by the name > "free software"). > I agree in general, bit things aren't necessarily as stark as they might seem; there are a fair (I originally said "reasonable" and then rejected that implication) number of iOS and Android packages that make their source code available for all to see and maybe-use. The troubles tend to arise where the tools for building and installing that software is closed, and also in the steady move towards "walled gardens" where a user needs to jump through extradoridinary hoops to install and run self-made software on their own devices. As a practical matter, the rough shape of Android app security has resulted in strong movements towards ever more proprietary walls for a large set of users, the platform maintainers (Google and the various OEMs), and many of the software producers (because "knock-off" versions of popular software with added spyware/exploit code is so common). At least in the U.S., the hegemony of the mobile carrier networks makes free mobile software very difficult. From my own perspective of hobby-level hacking on mobile hardware since the mid 90's, it feels a bit like "one step forward, two steps back, and then the goalposts get moved forward 20 meters". Sorry for the tangent; thanks for the FSF & GNU. ~Chad [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2709 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 18:55 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 21:16 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) Stefan Monnier @ 2020-05-04 3:05 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-05 14:08 ` Arthur Miller 1 sibling, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-04 3:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel, dgutov [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > Seems > like world has realized power of open source, which is great. If people have realized the usefulness of the existing free programs, that is good. If people realize the value of the _freedom_ that free software gives, and learn to demand this freedom, that would be GREAT. Using the term "open source" tends to cover up that crucial point. For the free software movement, that is self-defeating. So please let's make an effort to call our work "free", "libre", or both -- not "open". See https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more explanation of the difference between free software and open source. See also https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler for Evgeny Morozov's article on the same point. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-04 3:05 ` Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-05 14:08 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-06 4:46 ` Richard Stallman 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-05 14:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Stallman; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel, dgutov Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > > Seems > > like world has realized power of open source, which is great. > > If people have realized the usefulness of the existing free programs, > that is good. > > If people realize the value of the _freedom_ that free software gives, > and learn to demand this freedom, that would be GREAT. > > Using the term "open source" tends to cover up that crucial point. > For the free software movement, that is self-defeating. So please > let's make an effort to call our work "free", "libre", or both -- not > "open". > > See https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html > for more explanation of the difference between free software and open > source. See also https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler for > Evgeny Morozov's article on the same point. Yes of course RMS, I am completely with you when it comes to free software and freedom. I definitely appreciate all you have done through history, not less initiating everything. It is just that sometimes, in everyday speech we don't always use official, full, long names for stuff or hard distinctions because we tend to shortcut things in speech. It happends in all languages, fields of human activity etc. So we don't always say GNU/Linux, we say Linux even when we mean GNU/Linux, just as we don't always say Microsoft Windows but just Windows, or Apple OSX but just OSX etc. Same thing happened there, I said open source as an umbrella term, with no wishes diminish value of free software or not being aware of distinction. As a side not, personally I think that once most people realize the power of community collaboration and openess, which might be happening, maybe there will even not be a need for enforcing "freeiness" as with GPL3, just as we don't need a law to enforce other things in life when they become peoples identity becuase people wish to do those things anyway. But maybe it is just utopia thinking, don't know, but I think both "open source" and "free software" is on the raise (just my personal opinion). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-05 14:08 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-06 4:46 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-06 18:14 ` Nikita Mogilevsky 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-06 4:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: emacs-devel, dgutov, ndame [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > It is just that sometimes, in everyday speech we don't always use > official, full, long names for stuff Since "free software" is only two charactes longer than "open source", how about making the effort to acquire that habit? It will help our cause, and once you learn the habit, you will hardly mind those extra characters. > say Linux even when we mean GNU/Linux, just as we don't always say > Microsoft Windows but just Windows, or Apple OSX but just OSX etc. They are similar in being shortenings, but there is a crucial difference. Saying just "Windows" does not lead to forgetting that it comes from Microsoft. Saying just "OSX" does not lead to forgetting that it comes from Apple. There is no reason to make an effort to avoid those shortenings. But saying just "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux" misrepresents who developed it. That hampers what the GNU Project can achieve. So how about making the effort to avoid that particular shortening? -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-06 4:46 ` Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-06 18:14 ` Nikita Mogilevsky 2020-05-07 2:48 ` Richard Stallman 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Nikita Mogilevsky @ 2020-05-06 18:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: rms; +Cc: emacs-devel [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2721 bytes --] Hello, folks. I'd like to throw my two cents in as a relatively new user. I've been using emacs for org-mode, coding, and irc on and off for a few years. The display interface: There is already a thread about emacs' square appearance, but many features of emacs would benefit from looking modernized. I agree with RMS that emacs will need some reimagined graphics library implementation to make that possible. Customize: This feature is conceptually simple but I found it almost hostile to interact with. Between, states and unintuitive input fields. I found it hard to understand what many functions and variables were meant to do or represent. The documentation for these values showed elisp, so I quickly transitioned away from customize. I don't know what I would improve here but I think that many new users are guided to this feature and I don't recommend them to play with it from personal experiences. How should we poll new users and their initial interactions with emacs? Would a setup wizard be helpful for common bindings like modern kill-yank equivalents? While the philosophy funnels towards abandoning mouse cursors and buttons what would be intuitive features for transitioning from that kind of behavior? On Tue, May 5, 2020, 21:47 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > > It is just that sometimes, in everyday speech we don't always use > > official, full, long names for stuff > > Since "free software" is only two charactes longer than "open source", > how about making the effort to acquire that habit? It will help our > cause, and once you learn the habit, you will hardly mind those extra > characters. > > > say Linux even when we mean GNU/Linux, just as we don't always say > > Microsoft Windows but just Windows, or Apple OSX but just OSX etc. > > They are similar in being shortenings, but there is a crucial difference. > > Saying just "Windows" does not lead to forgetting that it comes from > Microsoft. > Saying just "OSX" does not lead to forgetting that it comes from Apple. > There is no reason to make an effort to avoid those shortenings. > > But saying just "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux" misrepresents who > developed it. That hampers what the GNU Project can achieve. So how > about making the effort to avoid that particular shortening? > > -- > Dr Richard Stallman > Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) > Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) > Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) > > > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3613 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-06 18:14 ` Nikita Mogilevsky @ 2020-05-07 2:48 ` Richard Stallman 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-07 2:48 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Nikita Mogilevsky; +Cc: emacs-devel [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > Customize: > This feature is conceptually simple but I found it almost hostile to > interact with. Between, states and unintuitive input fields. I found it > hard to understand what many functions and variables were meant to do or > represent. The documentation for these values showed elisp, so I quickly > transitioned away from customize. I don't know what I would improve here > but I think that many new users are guided to this feature and I don't > recommend them to play with it from personal experiences. I agree that it has big problems. New users could tell us some aspects they notice as difficult. I don't think we can expect them to tell us what would make it better for them -- not in general. All I can suggest is for someone to try implementing a nicer interface and invite some new users to try it, saying which aspects they find less than ideal. Then repeat. Perhaps we should have separate customize code for graphical displays. I expect most new users use those. If it doesn't have to share code with the tty interface, it could be improved more. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 15:59 ` Dmitry Gutov @ 2020-05-02 16:25 ` ndame 2020-05-02 19:04 ` Drew Adams 2020-05-03 3:42 ` Richard Stallman 3 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: ndame @ 2020-05-02 16:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: Richard Stallman, emacs-devel@gnu.org > > You can still have Emacs traditional/classic/call-it-whatever > mode and other modes that emulate other text editors. Veterans said they don't like when emacs defaults change and they have to modify their configs to go back to old defaults. The solution discussed recently when if emacs is started without config then it offers modern settings to the user can be a good workaround. This may not work always, because I saw 1-2 line config files created by a given *nix distribution, so in that case the check would fail for new users. So in addition the other suggestion about a big, conspicuous button added to the splash screen should also be implemented. A button with text like "I'm new to emacs, give me friendly settings!" which when pressed sets up emacs to be similar to the usual standards. > It already exists > in Emacs, that is what evil & co does, there is CUA-mode etc. Emacs should have keybinding-themes like in other editors which offer various keybinding variants. E.g in IntelliJ: IntelliJ IDEA automatically selects a predefined keymap based on your environment. Make sure that it matches the OS you are using or select the one that matches shortcuts from another IDE or editor you are used to (for example, Eclipse or NetBeans). https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/configuring-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts.html The tricky thing is these key-themes should be reflected in the documentation too, so, for example, you couldn't have hardcoded keys in info, but rather info should be an active document, that is, when it talks about keys invoking commands then it should query the active bindings for the commands and show those to present a documentation which is consistent with the current keymap-theme. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* RE: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 15:59 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-05-02 16:25 ` ndame @ 2020-05-02 19:04 ` Drew Adams 2020-05-02 19:36 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-03 3:42 ` Richard Stallman 3 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Drew Adams @ 2020-05-02 19:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller, Richard Stallman; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel > Question is also do you want those people who are > unvilling to scratch the surface and deep-dive > into Emacs and spend time to learn it and configure > it, to use Emacs? In general, I don't care. "Those people" are really all kinds of people, with different reluctance to scratch the surface. You can do a lot with Emacs without scratching any surface. Do I want someone who doesn't scratch the surface at all to use Emacs? Sure, if they like. But if they don't like, that's OK too. Emacs may not be for everyone, but I've seen all kinds of people, including non-scratchers of all sorts, come to use it productively, and even come to love it. Are there others who will never take advantage of it or appreciate it? Sure. FWIW, I really do NOT think that anyone who's been involved with Emacs development has little care for newbies or for making Emacs flexible and easy to use. The opposite is the case - everyone I've ever see take an interest in Emacs cares very much about usability, discoverability, etc. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 19:04 ` Drew Adams @ 2020-05-02 19:36 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 20:05 ` Drew Adams 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 19:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Drew Adams; +Cc: ndame, Richard Stallman, emacs-devel Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes: > FWIW, I really do NOT think that anyone who's > been involved with Emacs development has little > care for newbies or for making Emacs flexible and > easy to use. I do NOT think something like that either Drew, nor did I state that, just to be clear. Emacs is a prime example of flexibility, sure! I wrote, Emacs is super-adaptable. Ease of use can be debatable, what is easy for you and me does not necessary mean easy for somebody else. > The opposite is the case - everyone I've ever see > take an interest in Emacs cares very much about > usability, discoverability, etc. I didn't say Eamcs devs don't care about it either, I am sorry if I sound to you like that. Usability, discoverability and other user friendliness have many faces. What I tried to say, is that that Emacs might have used some kind of a facelift to reflect more of a time we live in. Yes, sure, there are examples were people have not scratched under the surface of Emacs, and lots of people use it with out-of-the-box settings. But it wasn't point that it is not possible, or that there are no users who does not do something with Emacs. The point is that many users are not finding Emacs that useful, and are probably not even trying it or switching after very short period to something else because of Emacs not conforming to some basic expectations they happened to have. Sure, one can never please everyone, that is just how life is. No matter how one make something or how good one try, there will always be someone who will want it differently, but nowdays, there are some basics that most software seems to follow, and some people seems to be lost of those are not met. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* RE: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 19:36 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 20:05 ` Drew Adams 2020-05-02 21:16 ` Arthur Miller 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Drew Adams @ 2020-05-02 20:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: ndame, Richard Stallman, emacs-devel > > FWIW, I really do NOT think that anyone who's > > been involved with Emacs development has little > > care for newbies or for making Emacs flexible and > > easy to use. > > I do NOT think something like that either Drew, nor did > I state that, just to be clear. Emacs is a prime example of > flexibility, sure! I wrote, Emacs is super-adaptable. > Ease of use can be debatable, what is easy for you and me > does not necessary mean easy for somebody else. I wasn't saying anything about what you said, beyond responding to your question: > Question is also do you want those people who are > unvilling to scratch the surface and deep-dive > into Emacs and spend time to learn it and configure > it, to use Emacs? There's nothing personal in my answer to that question. It's a reasonable question. And I gave my honest answer to it - zero about you. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 20:05 ` Drew Adams @ 2020-05-02 21:16 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 22:16 ` Drew Adams 0 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 21:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Drew Adams; +Cc: ndame, Richard Stallman, emacs-devel Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes: >> > FWIW, I really do NOT think that anyone who's >> > been involved with Emacs development has little >> > care for newbies or for making Emacs flexible and >> > easy to use. >> >> I do NOT think something like that either Drew, nor did >> I state that, just to be clear. Emacs is a prime example of >> flexibility, sure! I wrote, Emacs is super-adaptable. >> Ease of use can be debatable, what is easy for you and me >> does not necessary mean easy for somebody else. > > I wasn't saying anything about what you said, > beyond responding to your question: > > > Question is also do you want those people who are > > unvilling to scratch the surface and deep-dive > > into Emacs and spend time to learn it and configure > > it, to use Emacs? > > There's nothing personal in my answer to that > question. It's a reasonable question. And I > gave my honest answer to it - zero about you. Aha, OK, then I have slightly missunderstand what you ment. Sorry. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* RE: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 21:16 ` Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-02 22:16 ` Drew Adams 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Drew Adams @ 2020-05-02 22:16 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: emacs-devel, Richard Stallman, ndame > Aha, OK, then I have slightly missunderstand what you ment. Sorry. No problem; thanks. There are lots of strong opinions & arguments being expressed. That's OK, as long as the opinions & arguments are about the opinions & arguments. ;-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2020-05-02 19:04 ` Drew Adams @ 2020-05-03 3:42 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-05 13:58 ` Arthur Miller 3 siblings, 1 reply; 27+ messages in thread From: Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-03 3:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Miller; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > Emacs would be a more drastic UI change than the one Blender made, > Njah, they rewrote their GUI code almost completely. I think we are talking past each other. I don't use Blender, I don't know the field of animation, and I could be misunderstanding everything about it. But I think that in Blender, the command set is just an interface, whereas in Emacs, the commands are what it is. I think that animation is fundamentally more complex than text. Not just a little more complex, but enormously and deeply so. I expect Blender has a lot of very different and very complex things it can do to the animation being edited. So a Blender user would be thinking all the time about which complex and sophisticated operation perse wants to do next, and the commands to invoke the operation would be secondary. Whereas in Emacs, I think, we are focused on lots of commands to do more-or-less transparent things with text. But anyway, would > that necessary be a bad thing? You can develop another interface to Emacs. We could support it as an option, but it would not be Emacs. -- Dr Richard Stallman Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers 2020-05-03 3:42 ` Richard Stallman @ 2020-05-05 13:58 ` Arthur Miller 0 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread From: Arthur Miller @ 2020-05-05 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Stallman; +Cc: ndame, emacs-devel Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > > > Emacs would be a more drastic UI change than the one Blender made, > > > Njah, they rewrote their GUI code almost completely. > > I think we are talking past each other. Easy happends on the Internet, but I don't think we are, at least not completely. > be misunderstanding everything about it. But I think that in Blender, > the command set is just an interface, whereas in Emacs, the commands > are what it is. > You can develop another interface to Emacs. We could support it as an option, > but it would not be Emacs. It probably depends on what you define as a command as well as what you see as Emacs identity. If you identify Emacs as a set of shortcuts and terminology then changig C-x C-f to C-o and cutting instead of'killing' stuff will probably introde on it's identity. I personally don't identify Emacs as a bunch of shortcuts. To me the identity lies more deeply under the surface, and the outer surface is just a handle to operate Emacs. The beauty and practicality of Emacs is that handle can be easily exchanged. > I think that animation is fundamentally more complex than text. Not > just a little more complex, but enormously and deeply so. I expect > Blender has a lot of very different and very complex things it can do > to the animation being edited. So a Blender user would be thinking > all the time about which complex and sophisticated operation perse > wants to do next, and the commands to invoke the operation would be > secondary. > > Whereas in Emacs, I think, we are focused on lots of commands to > do more-or-less transparent things with text. I am neither modeller nor animator myself, so I am not an expert either. I don't think though the complexity matter so much, at least not in context of this discussion. Regardless of what complex operations an animator would think of in a 3D application and what an Emacs user would think in an Editor, the priniple is same: one think in terms of what one would do to a content one works with. The commands to invoke those are secondary. When I write this email, and type a misstake, I think in terms of moving the cursor to correct place and deleting characters etc. Which shortcuts I use, or mouse movements, etc, is secondary. If I wrote this in browser instead of Emacs, I would involve different set of shortcuts but they would execute "same" set of commands. Even though those commands are named differently and implemented differently (different programming language, environment etc) I still think in same logical terms of moving cursor and replacing characters. So if newcomers open Emacs and want to do simple things like cut/copy/paste, open file etc, something that has very similar set of shortcuts in very many applications nowdays, they would just type a misstake in their content in Emacs, which probably leads to frustration. Then they will open fine manual and stat searching for cut and copy and paste and found nothing because we call it differen around here :-). OK, I am carricaturing, it is not really true at least not for those simple cases, but I hope it illustrates what I mean. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 27+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2020-05-07 2:48 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 27+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2020-04-27 17:50 Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers ndame 2020-04-27 18:07 ` Arthur Miller 2020-04-28 0:13 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-04-30 2:26 ` Richard Stallman 2020-04-30 5:58 ` ndame 2020-05-02 2:21 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-02 15:52 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 15:59 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-05-02 17:00 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 18:20 ` Dmitry Gutov 2020-05-02 18:55 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 21:16 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) Stefan Monnier 2020-05-02 21:46 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software Arthur Miller 2020-05-03 23:27 ` [OFFTOPIC] Free Software (was: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers) chad 2020-05-04 3:05 ` Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers Richard Stallman 2020-05-05 14:08 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-06 4:46 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-06 18:14 ` Nikita Mogilevsky 2020-05-07 2:48 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-02 16:25 ` ndame 2020-05-02 19:04 ` Drew Adams 2020-05-02 19:36 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 20:05 ` Drew Adams 2020-05-02 21:16 ` Arthur Miller 2020-05-02 22:16 ` Drew Adams 2020-05-03 3:42 ` Richard Stallman 2020-05-05 13:58 ` Arthur Miller
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