Re: "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete]

[ken <gebser@mousecar.com>]

On 10/03/2011 09:41 AM Suvayu Ali wrote:
> Hi Ken,
> 
> On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:18:11 -0400
> ken <gebser@mousecar.com> wrote:
> 
>> Secondly, there are places in the world where people haven't ever
>> used Windows; instead, their first and only experience with computers
>> is with Linux.  What sense can it make to them that emacs' behavior
>> is changed simply to mimic some other editor they've never seen or
>> used?
> 
> You wrongly assumed by modern editors I was talking about Windows
> editors[1], 

No, I wasn't assuming you were talking about Word.  Since you didn't say 
which editor you were talking about, I just picked Word as a foil.  If 
you re-read my post, you'll see on my first reference to Word I preceded 
it by "e.g.", implying the same thereafter.


> you can check out other FOSS editors (in fact they are
> pretty good for relatively simple use) like Geany, Kate, Gedit, Nedit
> (this is actually pretty old), text input windows of most file/web
> browsers, many GUI email clients and so on. And most of the friends I
> was trying to introduce to org-mode were *nix users already (yes there
> are non-techie people using *nix, and yes they made the decision
> without any "friendly help" guiding them in that direction).

My same argument still applies: What's done in other editors isn't 
relevant here.  Emacs doesn't have to do everything the same as [insert 
your favorite editor here].  *Again* we shouldn't try simply to follow 
what's fashionable.

Also, I don't understand the reason for making a distinction between 
"techie people" and others.


> 
> No need to start a(n) argument/flame-war here, RMS asked users' opinion
> and I expressed myself. ....

Agreed.  It's just that you were the second person to bring up the 
Following Fashion argument.  It seemed, then, worthwhile to consider 
which criteria are actually relevant to the issue.  How is that 
'starting a flame war'?



> ....
> 
> Footnotes:
> 
> [1] BTW, MS Word is not an editor, its a word processor a parallel in
>     the FOSS world would be LibreOffice Writer.

And, technically speaking, emacs is a text processor.  Relevance?