From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Peter Milliken" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs's popularity (was: Distributed Maintenance for Emacs) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:42:34 +1100 Message-ID: <791153ba0812151242u7b5f6958g6adf54d72b84d3a4@mail.gmail.com> References: <2103fd36-c5cd-4e8d-a74f-34697a369934@a26g2000prf.googlegroups.com> <003101c954de$f95a3000$0200a8c0@us.oracle.com> <87skop8cc7.fsf@iki.fi> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_49556_28505268.1229373754820" X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1229373901 27777 80.91.229.12 (15 Dec 2008 20:45:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:45:01 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: "Teemu Likonen" Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Dec 15 21:46:06 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LCKIf-0005ql-3k for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:44:23 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:34361 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LCKHT-0004Yt-0V for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:43:07 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LCKH2-0004YW-WA for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:42:41 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LCKH1-0004YE-2g for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:42:40 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=38235 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LCKH0-0004YB-VA for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:42:38 -0500 Original-Received: from mu-out-0910.google.com ([209.85.134.191]:55371) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LCKGz-0002dn-25 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:42:38 -0500 Original-Received: by mu-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id i2so1556211mue.6 for ; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:42:34 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; bh=d51gQNkfHiA8qSwEkKpsdm7BAsQdOmianNbtvfIQg3s=; b=QdrNH/aD2qci11eHJBrjn/maVDT30aAIF7IEQlWOPmS9HKAPjQMvImQYYwxbKSNI8N Aqth8QZqP+C7yTZypbj0AUkCGs84sGVXiwWgbmK5lVVCserAwbGODU9iePP46o/ufbLX FWAbRnT8BCOgwN6ejw47Cs48ICMgvZMNZKnaI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:references; b=w+G7DG+pqXMsd/sTX2ajvbthpeSx7XbXrC80VvsFWPy9EKYM98lJrU61fYIlwri6LW xb541TSXUy+k6q2t+QBMF9Dl3BhAvhnl5TjvRVP+YktdNZBzsVgRYffggdmpkmfuunhz pklOB+wBaPCP9imFp+biU0FFINCMfeLnYyiDo= Original-Received: by 10.103.1.5 with SMTP id d5mr3167408mui.29.1229373754818; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:42:34 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.103.95.12 with HTTP; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:42:34 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87skop8cc7.fsf@iki.fi> X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:60641 Archived-At: ------=_Part_49556_28505268.1229373754820 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline It is difficult to tell if the emacs user base is "dying" - all I can do is comment from experience. I have been a programmer for 25+ years now. In the "early" days, Emacs and Vi were two of the main contenders - because Unix was one of the most popular OS's (I used VAX's for a while - but neither was available there). When IBM/Microsoft put PC's on everybodies desks, the proliferation of "other" editors started to explode. In my working experience, once PC's hit the desktop, Emacs or Vi were NEVER the popular editor. So for at least the last 20+ years, I have been virtually the only user in the organisation that I was currently working for at the time using Emacs (or an Emacs look-alike - in the early days of PC's, before DJ Delorie came along, you used things like "micro Emacs" if you were an Emacs junkie). My current organisation has about 30 - 40 programmers across a number of small projects - there are only two of us using Emacs :-) So whether you can define Emacs as dying out - or just holding it's own is a matter of perspective :-) Certainly you are likely to find a much higher user base with OS's such as Debian's distribution of Linux - but I haven't ever worked for an organisation that put machines running Linux on our desks - managers like to play safe by spending lots of money with Microsoft and getting the lowest common denominator on everybodies desk... Pete On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote: > Leo (2008-12-15 18:24 +0000) wrote: > > > On 2008-12-14 21:37 +0000, Xah Lee wrote: > >> I really feel sorry emacs's user base is dying. The most important > >> thing i think is to get emacs to use modern terminologies and be > >> compatible with the minimum of standard modern UI. > > > > Users are not scared off by Emacs's UI. It is more important its > > functionality. > > Are people being scared off in the first place? I mean more than > normally. :-) > > I don't know but at least among Debian GNU/Linux users Emacs's > popularity doesn't seem to have decreased. Here's a Debian popularity > contest[1] graph that shows the popularity of packages emacs21, > emacs21-nox, emacs22, emacs22-nox and emacs22-gtk: > > http://preview.tinyurl.com/55stry [2] > > The graph shows that Emacs22 started gaining popularity around mid-2007 > (the release) and Emacs21 started losing it. Those summed together Emacs > is no less popular than before. The latest official Debian release (4.0 > "Etch") includes Emacs21. > > This popularity measurement category is called "vote". It means that > user has accessed (atime) the files in the package within 30 days. It > roughly means that the software is actually being used, not only > installed. > > > --------------- > [1] http://popcon.debian.org/ > > [2] > http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=emacs21%2Cemacs21-nox%2Cemacs22%2Cemacs22-gtk%2Cemacs22-nox&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1 > ------=_Part_49556_28505268.1229373754820 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline It is difficult to tell if the emacs user base is "dying" - all I can do is comment from experience. I have been a programmer for 25+ years now. In the "early" days, Emacs and Vi were two of the main contenders - because Unix was one of the most popular OS's (I used VAX's for a while - but neither was available there). When IBM/Microsoft put PC's on everybodies desks, the proliferation of "other" editors started to explode.

In my working experience, once PC's hit the desktop, Emacs or Vi were NEVER the popular editor. So for at least the last 20+ years, I have been virtually the only user in the organisation that I was currently working for at the time using Emacs (or an Emacs look-alike - in the early days of PC's, before DJ Delorie came along, you used things like "micro Emacs" if you were an Emacs junkie). My current organisation has about 30 - 40 programmers across a number of small projects - there are only two of us using Emacs :-)

So whether you can define Emacs as dying out - or just holding it's own is a matter of perspective :-) Certainly you are likely to find a much higher user base with OS's such as Debian's distribution of Linux - but I haven't ever worked for an organisation that put machines running Linux on our desks - managers like to play safe by spending lots of money with Microsoft and getting the lowest common denominator on everybodies desk...

Pete

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:
Leo (2008-12-15 18:24 +0000) wrote:

> On 2008-12-14 21:37 +0000, Xah Lee wrote:
>> I really feel sorry emacs's user base is dying. The most important
>> thing i think is to get emacs to use modern terminologies and be
>> compatible with the minimum of standard modern UI.
>
> Users are not scared off by Emacs's UI. It is more important its
> functionality.

Are people being scared off in the first place? I mean more than
normally. :-)

I don't know but at least among Debian GNU/Linux users Emacs's
popularity doesn't seem to have decreased. Here's a Debian popularity
contest[1] graph that shows the popularity of packages emacs21,
emacs21-nox, emacs22, emacs22-nox and emacs22-gtk:

   http://preview.tinyurl.com/55stry [2]

The graph shows that Emacs22 started gaining popularity around mid-2007
(the release) and Emacs21 started losing it. Those summed together Emacs
is no less popular than before. The latest official Debian release (4.0
"Etch") includes Emacs21.

This popularity measurement category is called "vote". It means that
user has accessed (atime) the files in the package within 30 days. It
roughly means that the software is actually being used, not only
installed.


---------------
[1] http://popcon.debian.org/

[2] http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=emacs21%2Cemacs21-nox%2Cemacs22%2Cemacs22-gtk%2Cemacs22-nox&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1

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