From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: rusi Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Icicles [was: shell command completion gone] Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:10:55 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <9df7037c-e4d3-4a1b-9fcf-f130853de421@a10g2000vby.googlegroups.com> References: <87pqs9cive.fsf@towardsfreedom.com><87aajbxcz0.fsf@towardsfreedom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1294810871 2910 80.91.229.12 (12 Jan 2011 05:41:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:41:11 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 12 06:41:07 2011 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 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PctSE-0003LQ-Ms for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Jan 2011 06:41:06 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:50139 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PctSE-0004DH-1P for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:41:06 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!a10g2000vby.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 66 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 116.73.35.230 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1294809055 13750 127.0.0.1 (12 Jan 2011 05:10:55 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:10:55 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: a10g2000vby.googlegroups.com; posting-host=116.73.35.230; posting-account=mBpa7woAAAAGLEWUUKpmbxm-Quu5D8ui User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13,gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:184223 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:78400 Archived-At: On Jan 12, 4:21=A0am, "Drew Adams" wrote: > For example, I do not set Icicles default values to the values that I > myself use. =A0I set them to what I expect will be most useful for most > people. > > You would (or perhaps would not) be surprised at the number of people > who have different preferences and think that a default behavior > should be changed. =A0Users sometimes do not think, like maintainers do, > in terms of other users - they sometimes think that what is most > natural and most useful is what _they_ happen to prefer. =A0As users we > are probably all guilty of that. =A0So there is always someone who > thinks that some default behavior is a bad choice. > > I aim to have the default settings provide a good combination overall > for using Icicles. =A0Things are designed to fit together and take good > advantage of what Icicles has to offer (synergy). =A0Think of this > approach to defaults as being "what is best for using Icicles" - for > most use cases. =A0That's the aim, anyway. > > That's not the same as throwing everything at you so you are forced to > discover features by accident, as gotchas. =A0The latter might appear to > be the case, but it is not. =A0I think a lot about the defaults, and I > try to document things well, including how to turn things off and how > to customize. I of course appreciate that as the developer's/envisioner's view. But just see what its like from that of a wannabe user (like but not restricted to yours truly :-) He has a stark 0 1 infinity choice: 0. No icicles 1. Use icicles with defaults as given infinity. tweak and understand every available option How could this be improved? I'm putting together 2 ideas 1. Ive heard Alan Mackenzie use the word 'emacsicality' for a collection of (semi)coherent customizations 2. viper mode has a zillion customizations collected into 5 'levels' So the viper solution for icicles would be to have say 3-4 levels of icicles ranging from plain vanilla emacs to expert. But there is a less technological solution which will certainly be easier on Drew but likely also on the typical emacs user: Put up (on the wiki maybe) a bunch of customization-bundles corresponding to common learning paths. So the vanilla-user learning path would be as follows (One could replace vanilla by ido and iswitch if desired; you get a few more bundles) bundle-0. All keys behave as in vanilla emacs; icicles functionality available in a standard place such as a menu bundle-1. A few key (sorry for the pun) concepts are understood and their corresponding keys are bound; but ONLY those keys bundle-2. More concepts and more keys Stop at 3 or 4! [And thats not factorial!] > Thanks for your kind words, Le and Prad. I have taught programming for nearly 25 years and the most valuable learning Ive got (which Ive unfortunately mostly wasted) is beginner mistakes. If I had a chance to go back I would collect the best 'mistakes'. That is to say you need people like Le and Prad (and hopefully myself) as control-points on the learning-bezier-curve.