From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Gtk patch version 3, part 1 Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 13:23:05 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200301011944.h01Jim0U011400@stubby.bodenonline.com> <5xu1gpu4do.fsf@kfs2.cua.dk> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1041773006 2410 80.91.224.249 (5 Jan 2003 13:23:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 13:23:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18VAkP-0000ck-00 for ; Sun, 05 Jan 2003 14:23:25 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 18VAo0-0004TD-00 for ; Sun, 05 Jan 2003 14:27:08 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18VAkj-0006iE-00 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 05 Jan 2003 08:23:45 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 18VAkM-0006ce-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 05 Jan 2003 08:23:22 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 18VAkJ-0006Xq-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 05 Jan 2003 08:23:20 -0500 Original-Received: from megalith.rattlesnake.com ([140.186.114.245] helo=localhost) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18VAkH-0006SG-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 05 Jan 2003 08:23:18 -0500 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.114) Sun, 5 Jan 2003 13:23:05 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm) In-reply-to: <5xu1gpu4do.fsf@kfs2.cua.dk> (storm@cua.dk) 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:10494 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:10494 > Yes. If it is not on your machine, you may not be able to access it: Well if it is not on your machine -- you definitely cannot access it without accessing the Internet. That is false! I do not access over the Internet most of the material that is not on my machine. You must be living in a rich and different world! Mostly, I get software and documentation from CDs. It would take me over 500 hours to download the Debian CDs that I use. We must rely on `having a local file', meaning a file that is a part of a standard distribution, and either on a user's machine, or less conveniently, on a CD or other inexpensive transport media. This means that we must continue to write documentation and provide it to the user. Some systems even come without man-pages ... and some come without Info. As a child, I enjoyed a cartoon in which the hero purchased an inexpensive, second-hand car that drove very quietly down the steep hill from the car dealership .... but the car refused to go up the next hill ... our cartoon hero then discovered that the car lacked an engine .... An instance of Emacs without documentation is as broken as a car without a motor. The people who make distributions without man-pages and Info are as crooked as the worst second-hand car salesmen. > Yes: please remember, when people look up a reference, you have to > think of them as being in `encyclopedia mode'. They want the > information. A link to another document on their machine is likely to > be perceived as a hinderance. If it is a link which they can click on with mouse-2 and have it opened in an emacs buffer, in a browser or in some other viewer, I think most users will be happy with that. No, in my rather extensive experience, people are not happy with that. After they learn about incremental search and regexps, and the convenience of proper documentation, most people I know prefer it. Unfortunately, many contemporary people have learned from interfaces that were thrown out a quarter century ago by people who had experience then. These people have not learned by using decent software, so they still think that computers are `better typewriters', and that documentation should be as awkward as you find in man pages or Web pages or in PDF documents. That failure is a fault of the suppliers and schools that persist on using trailing edge technology. You harm everyone by saying that `most users will be happy with an awkward interface' when you the truth is that `most users will be happy with a 1960s user interface so long as they don't know that an even better interface has been available for more than a generation'. > (A link to a document that they cannot > get to, because it is on another machine and they are off the > Internet, is likely to be perceived as a failure of the > documentation.) I disagree! Regarding a user's inability to access the Internet as a documentation failure seems quite far-fetched to me. Again, it appears to me that you are living in a limited world of intelligent and well connected geeks. In my experience, I have found that most people do not think of documentary `help' as meaning that they have to get off the telephone with me, plug the computer into the telephone line, dial the connection, and then pay for the download time on a per minute basis. They think they should be able to run the help function, and find out what they did wrong. For example -- and I will not tell you who among my relatives made this mistake less than two weeks ago -- you need to tell GNU where you are located if you want to see which stars are visible at your current time and location.... -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc bob@rattlesnake.com