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

[Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>]

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On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Le Wang <l26wang@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The most customizable editor and arguments and fights about an easily
> > settable default?
> > Ironic...
>
> You are proposing a new flame-war where grumpy old men complain that
> they have to now add a "emacscality" setting to their init file, and
> therefore Free software will lose and "M$", "MS", "Word",  "Apple"
> will win!
>

No No not my intention!  Ive too much invested into emacs to see it go down
the tube.

>
> The striking thing to me about this whole "debate" - and I stress the
> quotes - is that there is a distinct class of Emacs users, who having
> climbed the steep learning curve to "master" Emacs are very interested
> in keeping the barrier to entry high.  Presumably, they do this to
> keep themselves feeling special that they've acquired the Emacs skill.
>
> Please Le Lets not return flames with flames.


> They don't even bother to craft arguments for their position on UI
> design basis; of which there are few, including Alan Mackenzie's in
> the link you posted.  All they do is try to appeal to our love of Free
> software by trotting out strawmen like "Word", "MS" (or more absurdly
> "M$"), and "Apple".
>
> This is a user interface issue.


Yes, rms question was a UI question.  Many of the responses suggested that
although the details of this question dont bother them much there are larger
questions at stake of which this is a secondary/tertiary 'corollary'.  Would
it not be better to deal with those?


> Why can't we just present arguments
> as such?  I've layed out a specific use-case where this change will
> surely help new users.  Yes, NEW USERS.  They should be the focus.
> Not people who already know how to customize their Emacs.
>
>
Yes and no
Yes: We should focus on new users
No: for the 'only'

Lets remember that emacs started out as being unbelievably inclusive
[I remember 20 years ago when an emacs guru showed me that he could make
emacs into wordstar]

So lets start by trying to include free and commercial OSes, old and noob
users and back of from this position only when it is seen to be too utopian

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