From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: ken Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete] Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:44:42 -0400 Message-ID: <4E8AFFBA.1000808@mousecar.com> References: <87litcvtu2.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <20111003093334.0bf5d988@kuru.homelinux.net> <4E89B613.9060305@mousecar.com> Reply-To: gebser@mousecar.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1317732312 14983 80.91.229.12 (4 Oct 2011 12:45:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 12:45:12 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, emacs-delete-poll@gnu.org To: Jeremiah Dodds Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 04 14:45:08 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RB4Mt-0007qx-Cw for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:45:07 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58978 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RB4Ms-0001oZ-NN for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:45:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:49960) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RB4Mj-0001mi-Cn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:45:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RB4Me-0006eV-8R for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:44:57 -0400 Original-Received: from mout.perfora.net ([74.208.4.195]:59317) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RB4Me-0006eN-0U; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:44:52 -0400 Original-Received: from dellap.mousecar.net (dsl093-011-016.cle1.dsl.speakeasy.net [66.93.11.16]) by mrelay.perfora.net (node=mrus4) with ESMTP (Nemesis) id 0LyEBR-1R7mTj0ZUb-015SgF; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:44:49 -0400 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 (X11/20110928) In-Reply-To: X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:Yuk9vfWmPfrY+vev/uAqrXDUJKBcaUMZXZlDp7bncAx 8mgkee/lri/cW23qZ6vH8nBWkHzY9nviBgzFzQdqa3iu01UUzw zTt31/ux3ZSuXh/bAE5nYaqDD3r8bj4+bGBKqpFes7Q/fbVvGk otyXSUsRY0wD/KxMmAfu150bPqSiE6yrET4NdVww6eD/MlI1VJ hiG6oQkYZ3e9kMrfNf7lOj/ZtR00iGUr4B25IFCXobpodf37Ff zvr9jEqCGb8WadwsbuxhHR0lsMcNQougNabMQCFrDxypka9tQp zHgBAb5TyybAQXTJxn3NvIGul4xmSjw3t0Fmm1VJknTcTdCUfa rujlPHBXd0S32MnKtPK33WS/C35E2HNUPe0idZA7b X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 74.208.4.195 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:82442 Archived-At: 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 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. >