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

[ken <gebser@mousecar.com>]

Jeremiah,

To be considered a *hidden* assumption (which is what you really meant 
to say) to a proposition, it must logically necessary for that 
proposition.  What you're calling "assumptions" below are not.


On 10/03/2011 12:22 PM Jeremiah Dodds wrote:
> Let me preface by saying that I don't really care very much about the
> behavior of [DEL]
> here, but I do care about people trying to call out arguments as
> invalid with hogwash.
> 
> On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 8:18 AM, ken <gebser@mousecar.com> wrote:
>>> [Making this change] brings default Emacs behaviour close
>>> to other modern text editors. ....
>> This is an invalid argument, more an appeal to fashion than an appeal to
>> reason.  When switching from one application to another, we shouldn't expect
>> the new one to behave just like the former one.  They are different pieces
>> of software, after all.  When you start using different software, you should
>> expect that it will operate differently.  You should expect that you'll have
>> to learn new things.
>>
> 
> Assumptions:
> 
> Other "modern text editors" behavior was not decided upon via reason.
> All pieces of software are an island.
> 
> I don't disagree that people should expect to learn new things, but I'm also not
> ignorant of patterns of behavior in categories of software, and how that can
> influence a user's ability to learn things quickly as well as how that
> can affect adoption.
> 
> Perhaps if you had some evidence that the behavior of [DEL] in other
> modern editors
> was pretty much a big unfortunate trend, this argument would hold. If
> I had to guess though,
> I would guess that at least one of the editors out there with the
> behavior have some
> closer to empirical data as to why they chose that behavior.
> 
>> 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?
>>
> 
> Assumptions:
> 
> The Emacs community gives a crap about emacs making sense ;)
> In these places in the world, the only editor available is emacs.
> 
> From the discussion, it seems more likely that they'd say something like
> "Oh, well it looks like emacs does the same thing as these other editors now".
> Then again, I wouldn't know. Maybe some of them are on the list, and would
> like to say whether or not they'd be totally befuddled if the behavior of [DEL]
> changed?
> 
> 
>> I think that over the long term it will trend upwards that more people's
>> first and only computer experience will be with FOSS.  So thinking ahead to
>> those times, why should we alter the default behavior of Emacs to conform to
>> a legacy editor?
>>
> 
> This is just kinda sidestepping the argument.
> 
> A whoooole lot of Emacs behavior is the way it is because it was written before
> there were a whole lot of text editors around. Emacs has a lot of
> "legacy" behavior and
> terminology.
> 
> If, in the future, the majority of text editors decided that a
> different behavior for [DEL] was
> better, presumably through some sort of study, then at that time we
> might want to consider
> modifying the behavior of [DEL] again. Oh no!
> 
> "Correct behavior" and "usability" and all that are not things that
> are set in stone, they're
> more like really slow rivers mixed with a clusterfuck of culture. Now,
> whether or not the
> emacs community cares too much about that is another matter .... but
> then again, users
> who like and use emacs enough *to* care about keeping the current
> behavior are probably
> knowledgeable enough to know how to configure emacs to keep it...
> 
>> Fourth, if we apply your argument to every difference between Emacs and
>> (e.g.) Word, then we end up with Emacs behaving just like Word, and there
>> being no difference between Emacs and Word.  Then we might as well just use
>> Word. :/
>>
> 
> This is ridiculous. If all differences could be considered equal,
> maybe it wouldn't be.
> 
>> Fifth, if we change emacs to comport with Word, and if in future Word
>> changes the way it handles highlighted text to way emacs does now, should
>> emacs then change back again, just to (again) follow the way Word works?
>>
> 
> Well, is the emacs community making the change to follow *one* editor,
> or to follow a trend in
> behavior across multiple editors? If the latter has occured, it might
> be worth the
> consideration of the community.
> 
>> Finally, as said at the top, the argument to follow "other modern editors"
>> is nothing more than an appeal to fashion.  And fashion is very subjective
>> and capricious.  We should no more change emacs simply to comport with some
>> other, even (currently) more popular software than you and I and all the
>> other guys on this list should start dressing ourselves like the cool dudes
>> on whatever soap opera is the most popular these days.
>>
> 
> This is sort of pointless. AFAICT, keeping the behavior isn't any less
> an "appeal to fashion",
> it's just an appeal to the current emacs fashion, other than in the
> parts of the thread that were
> actually bringing up *reasons* for keeping it around or changing it
> that weren't just
> emotional claptrap.
> 
> If the change is *entirely* superficial, then what's going on is a
> bunch of bikeshedding, and this
> whole discussion should be tossed into the firey inferno.
> 
>> Let's just talk about what makes sense.
> 
> Seriously.
>