Re: Emacs Survey 2022 - design

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> Of course, this being a fiercely FOSS community, the situation with survey
> platforms leaves quite a bit to be desired. To resolve this issue, I spent some
> time last year writing a 100% FOSS, [survey framework] which is completely
> functional without any JS. I have attached some screenshots of it to this email.

Nice!

>             validators = v -> if v < 0
>                 "Seriously? Are we supposed to believe you're just planning ahead?"

Could also just be a wrap around.

>         MultiSelect(:emacs_mode,
>             "How do you run Emacs?",
>             ["Graphical Application (GUI)" => "GUI",
>              "Terminal (TUI)" => "TUI",
>              "Daemon/Client" => "daemon"]),

You can use the daemon with GUI frames or with text frames (or both), so
the 3 choices aren't mutually exclusive.

>         MultiSelect(:languages,
>             "Which languages do you program (in Emacs) in?",
>             ["Assembly", "C++", "C", "C#", "Clojure",
>              "Erlang", "Go", "HTML/CSS", "Haskell", "Javascript",
>              "Julia", "Java", "Lisp", "Python", "PHP", "Perl",
>              "R", "Rust", "Ruby", "Shell scripting" => "Shell",
>              "SQL", "Typescript", :other])),

ELisp is strangely missing here.

>     SurveyPart("First time questions",
>         "All of these questions are <i>optional</i>. Answer these if you're doing the survey for the first time.",

I think "taking" is the better verb here instead of "doing", tho
hopefully some native anglophone can confirm.

>     SurveyPart("Packages",
>         MultiSelect(:package_manager,
>             "How do you manage third-party packages?",
>             ["My framework/starter kit's default" => "framework default",
>              "package.el (built-in)" => "package.el",
>              "straight.el" => "straight.el",
>              "use-package" => "use-package.el",
>              "manual (git clone/download)" => "manual",
>              "not sure", :other]),

`use-package` looks out of place, since I don't think it offers any
facilities to download/install/update/uninstall packages.

>         MultiSelect(:package_repositories,
>             "Which package repositories do you use?",
>             ["My framework/starter kit's default" => "framework default",
>              "GNU ELPA" => "ELPA", "Melpa", "Melpa Stable",
>              "Built from source (e.g. using straight)" => "Source",
>              "not sure", :other]),

NonGNU ELPA?

>         MultiSelect(:theme, # people can use a light and dark theme
>             "Which theme do you use?",
>             ["The default theme" => "default",
>              "my own custom theme",
>              "doom-one", "dracula", "gruvbox",
>              "modus-operandi", "modus-vivendi", "nord",
>              "solarized", "solarized-dark", "zenburn",
>              :other]),

The default theme is actually 2 themes (a dark one and a light one), so
it would make more sense to split it into two (or otherwise to merge
modus-operandi and modus-vivendi as well as solarized and solarized-dark).

>         RadioSelect(:melpa_contribution,
>             "Have you ever contributed to a Melpa package?",
>             ["No", "Occasionaly", "Frequently"]),

[ BTW, last I checked it's spelled "MELPA" and not "Melpa".  Don't know
  if the MELPA guys care about the difference, tho.  ]

Not sure what the question means, really: you can't contribute via
MELPA, and most packages are on MELPA, so if you contributed to an ELisp
package, that contribution probably found its way to MELPA even if you
never heard of it.

To a large extent the same holds for GNU ELPA, so maybe the distinction
between "contributed to MELPA packages" vs "contributed to GNU ELPA
packages" just doesn't make much sense.

Without knowing what you're hoping to do with the result of that
question it'shard to know what to do with it, but maybe you're rather
interested to distinguish contributions via `M-x report-emacs-bug` or
emacs-devel from contributions via things like merge requests on
some forge?

>         RadioSelect(:has_donated,
>             "Have you ever contributed financially to Emacs development (via the FSF)",
>             ["No",
>              "Yes",
>              "I would if I could donate to Emacs directly" => "Would directly",
>              "I would like to, but cannot" => "Cannot"])),

I think FSF membership does contribute (to a very small extent), so
maybe you want to clarify whether you'd count this as a valid
contribution or whether you're thinking of more
significant/targeted contributions?

>              "Asosociate's Degree" => "Asosociates",

I don't know that one.  I'm tempted to say it's a typo for "Associates"?


        Stefan