From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 22:15:08 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <874mndha2b.fsf@debian.uxu> References: <554C9356.5000204@gmail.com> <20150508125314086261755@bob.proulx.com> <87bnhuc177.fsf@mbork.pl> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1431720620 13696 80.91.229.3 (15 May 2015 20:10:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 20:10:20 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri May 15 22:10:19 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YtLw2-0001I4-HE for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 22:10:18 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:32913 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtLw1-0001Ye-6o for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 16:10:17 -0400 X-FeedAbuse: http://nntpfeed.proxad.net/abuse.pl feeded by 195.154.70.45 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!nntpfeed.proxad.net!news.redatomik.org!gegeweb.org!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 116 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: feB02bRejf23rfBm51Mt7Q.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:dloH+tNFJ/rqQn73ghAZKK7qmh0= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:212173 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:104458 Archived-At: MBR writes: > What about trying a different approach? > Telling them, "Learn Emacs. You'll find it useful in > the long run," is guaranteed to make them hate it. > It's like being told, "Eat your vegetables. > They're good for you." > > Instead, why not challenge them to do some task > whose end result they'll consider useful, but that > you know will be a royal pain in the ass to do with > a simple-minded text editor. Make sure it's not > something contrived. Tell them to use whatever > editor they're most comfortable with. After 15 min. > or more of tedious editing in their underpowered, > brain-dead editor, show them that you can do the > same thing in 15 seconds using some general-purpose > Emacs feature. I agree telling people stuff in general and trying to convince them is pointless, perhaps even counter productive. It is like all the criminals and disfunctional crazy people in jails and institutions. Why did they end up there? I guess they didn't read the law book! Perhaps the authorities should compile a simplified version and hand it out so the convicts can read it after dropping the soap in the shower room... A better approach is to just have the software we like *exposed* to as many people as possible, and in as many ways as possible. A minority - small, but still - will be curious, and a minority of the minority will instantly see this is something they will like, a lot. This is what happened to me. I don't remember switching from nano to Emacs but I also do not remember ever wanting to go back. Use the software, and do cool things with it. If that doesn't work on people, is there anything we can say, or do, or write that will make for better PR, that will work? And: do we even *want* it to work on the people which were unaffected by the cool things that were all natural at that? But then, how do we expose it to people? Answer: activity. Here are some examples: When I wrote my Bachelor degree paper, I included a screenshot of Emacs and some comments (it was a subsection of the paper comparing interfaces). When I wrote my Master, I used (and included in the report) a short Elisp program to do some computation. I also made an experiment when a compilation process was timed in different settings - what I compiled was actually my Emacs, Gnus, w3m (etc.) init files! As you correctly suspect, this was only some 50% convenience (and even less practical necessity), the rest 50% was propaganda and "coolness", and the most important 50% was enjoyment being active with my favorite tools (yes, you get an extra 50% if you do all those). Later I gave a talk to describe some project, and instead of the pathetic "Power"Point I used Emacs - figures were ASCII and Unicode, and I had setup ultra-fast shortcuts to jump between and across the material (from anywhere to everywhere). This worked as the confidence of using what I use every day didn't disappear with the rest of the home-field advantage, and besides I could show code and respond to questions by showing stuff the same way I access it every day, and then when done carry on with the presentation by going to the next figure - like this: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/scheduler.png Another example is, I use BibLaTeX to keep track of what I read, so every time I discuss books with my friend the next day I send them a mail - again ultra-fast and convenient - just a yank from the .bib source to the message-buffer - "this was the book you asked me about" - @book{aku-aku, author = {Thor Heyerdahl}, publisher = {Bonniers}, title = {Aku-aku. Påsköns hemlighet}, year = 1957 } I use Elisp to keep track of birds so I can add new ones without updating the sum digit each time: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/BIRDS And so on. I always find new, unexpected things to do with it. And that is the best I can do! I personally would not mind meeting cool people who do amazing stuff. While I unsure I can be that cool person to anyone, I am 100% convinced if I were to take the "convince approach", I could speak to every girl in the entire public library Tuesday afternoon and I wouldn't turn a single one of them into Emacs, Gnus, Usenet, or zsh users (if anything, I'd be banned from the building, and I even know all the staff!). And even if I could convince people - which I absolutely can't - I wouldn't enjoy doing it, tho it would be beneficial to them to stop do the iPhone idiocy (and interesting to me, as it is so alone at the top ;)) - but it plain *doesn't work*, so why be frustrated about it? -- underground experts united http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573