Emacs discussed on US NPR

Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Tim Johnson]

For your listening pleasure :

Yesterday (5-28-15) I was listening to a NPR - John Hockenberry -
"The Takeaway" session and starting about 45 minutes after the hour
is a discussion which begins with emacs and then  progresses to open
source software in general.

This is the first time I have heard emacs discussed on Public
Radio.

audio and synopsis of show
  http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/slow-computing-conscientious-guide-tech/

enjoy  
-- 
Tim 
http://www.akwebsoft.com, http://www.tj49.com

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Stefan Monnier]

> Yesterday (5-28-15) I was listening to a NPR - John Hockenberry -
> "The Takeaway" session and starting about 45 minutes after the hour
> is a discussion which begins with emacs and then  progresses to open
> source software in general.

[ Sorry, no headphones to listen to the talk here.  ]
Does it talk about Free Software as well?


        Stefan

RE: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Drew Adams]

> > is a discussion which begins with emacs and then progresses to
> > open source software in general.
> 
> Sorry, no headphones to listen to the talk here.
> Does it talk about Free Software as well?  Stefan

You might be interested in this comment (the only one so far, it
seems), from a veteran Electrical Engineer in Santa Clara, CA:

  ...
  At the age of eighteen, my fingers learned to build emacs keyboard
  macros and I think I can use them in my sleep.  I still use GNUemacs
  (and Aquamacs) every day.

  Since, aside from venues such as the present one, I eschew use of all
  media tar babies such as the FacebookianInstaTwitterverse, you'd think
  I'd cocooned myself far from the "app" madding crowd.

  But, no.  Now when I get tired of some little set of quirks in the last
  release of GNUemacs to want to try my luck at the latest release, I must
  gird myself for a new bunch of "features", just like those suffered by
  MS Office users.  The only consolation is being able to recall my tiny
  understanding of LISP well enough to address the problem myself.  Until,
  of course, I have to use some other modified emacs on a foreign host.

  Sometimes I wish that all software types would just Stop Doing Stuff.

Alas, one person's shiny new "modernization" is another person's annoying
Clippy-the-not-so-helpful-helper.

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Phillip Lord]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Yesterday (5-28-15) I was listening to a NPR - John Hockenberry -
>> "The Takeaway" session and starting about 45 minutes after the hour
>> is a discussion which begins with emacs and then  progresses to open
>> source software in general.
>
> [ Sorry, no headphones to listen to the talk here.  ]
> Does it talk about Free Software as well?


In the broadcast, not really, although he mentions open source. His big
thing is slow computing (a la slow food). He's right, actually, he's
talking about the pleasure of using things that slow evolve over time
because someone wants it, rather than because of a market-driven
release. And the idea that, well, you know it's possible to actually
talk to developers of software and even change things yourself.

It's mostly about an article he published on New Republic.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121832/pleasure-do-it-yourself-slow-computing

It's pretty good, as it happens. I mean, you can explain the pleasure of
making your own dinner, as opposed to opening a packet to lots of
people. But explaining the pleasure of making your own computer
environment is a little more esoteric.

Phil

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Phillip Lord]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>> > is a discussion which begins with emacs and then progresses to
>> > open source software in general.
>> 
>> Sorry, no headphones to listen to the talk here.
>> Does it talk about Free Software as well?  Stefan
>
> You might be interested in this comment (the only one so far, it
> seems), from a veteran Electrical Engineer in Santa Clara, CA:
>
>   ...
>   At the age of eighteen, my fingers learned to build emacs keyboard
>   macros and I think I can use them in my sleep.  I still use GNUemacs
>   (and Aquamacs) every day.
>
>   Sometimes I wish that all software types would just Stop Doing Stuff.
>
> Alas, one person's shiny new "modernization" is another person's annoying
> Clippy-the-not-so-helpful-helper.

I remember a friend of mine complaining about this. A new release of
Emacs, now half the keybindings will have changed. Never having seen a
new release of Emacs, I stuck with the old version for quite a while.

That was Emacs 18, which was the first Emacs I'd used.

Phil

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Tim Johnson]

* Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk> [150528 13:12]:
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
<...> 
> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121832/pleasure-do-it-yourself-slow-computing
> 
> It's pretty good, as it happens. I mean, you can explain the pleasure of
> making your own dinner, as opposed to opening a packet to lots of
> people. But explaining the pleasure of making your own computer
> environment is a little more esoteric.
  Making my own computer environment is a pleasure. And hard to
  explain to those who don't, including many other coders.
-- 
Tim 
http://www.akwebsoft.com, http://www.tj49.com

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Paul Smith]

On Thu, 2015-05-28 at 22:07 +0100, Phillip Lord wrote:
> I remember a friend of mine complaining about this. A new release of
> Emacs, now half the keybindings will have changed. Never having seen a
> new release of Emacs, I stuck with the old version for quite a while.

I think this is an overstatement: the keys I use 99% of the time every
day haven't changed since I started using Emacs, which was a REALLY long
time ago.  What keybindings are we talking about?

Whenever I get a new version of Emacs I first read the NEWS file (C-h n)
where new features and changes are mentioned, along with descriptions on
how to revert to the previous behavior if you don't want them.

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Phillip Lord]

Paul Smith <paul@mad-scientist.net> writes:

> On Thu, 2015-05-28 at 22:07 +0100, Phillip Lord wrote:
>> I remember a friend of mine complaining about this. A new release of
>> Emacs, now half the keybindings will have changed. Never having seen a
>> new release of Emacs, I stuck with the old version for quite a while.
>
> I think this is an overstatement: the keys I use 99% of the time every
> day haven't changed since I started using Emacs, which was a REALLY long
> time ago.

So I found out when I finally upgraded.

> What keybindings are we talking about?

I was going to say "I have no idea, it was a while back" but I found
this:

http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/emacs-18-19.html

I do have vague memories of the RMAIL "e" rebinding that it mentions;
scary.

I shall return to reminiscing about the good old days in private, don't
mind me.

Phil

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Emanuel Berg]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> You might be interested in this comment (the only
> one so far, it seems), from a veteran Electrical
> Engineer in Santa Clara, CA:
>
>     ... At the age of eighteen, my fingers learned
>     to build emacs keyboard macros and I think I can
>     use them in my sleep. I still use GNUemacs (and
>     Aquamacs) every day.

Again this emphasis on keyboard macros I never
understood it and never did it - but so many people
often bring it up first thing! I always thought of it
as poor man's programming, and I still do, but perhaps
I'm wrong again as so many people likes and uses it
so much.

> Since, aside from venues such as the present one,
> I eschew use of all media tar babies such as the
> FacebookianInstaTwitterverse, you'd think I'd
> cocooned myself far from the "app" madding crowd.

It is really depressing but it is better not to use
and not to think of it. "Don't hate the software,
become the software." Or, write new interfaces to get
just what you like, the way you like it.

I recently mentioned my w3m hacks. But there are many
big projects like that as well. I recently discovered
the Debian package mps-youtube (with /usr/bin/mpsyt)
which allows you to access the whole YT media archive
from the shell, and with super-speed and power to
extract just what you look for. Wonderful!

>     Sometimes I wish that all software types would
>     just Stop Doing Stuff.
>
> Alas, one person's shiny new "modernization" is
> another person's annoying
> Clippy-the-not-so-helpful-helper.

Oh, no! Not this again!

Yes, it is "true" in a literal sense but the beneath
attitude is destructive and even incorrect!

The constructive approach which doesn't suffer from
the problem is: add as much useful stuff as possible,
but don't put it where anyone sees it and don't have
it interfere with anything else, and when the time
comes and when it is needed it is right there!

In a bicycle repair shop there are a lot of tools as
it should. So a good idea is to hang them on the walls
so you can still have the bikes and move around on the
floor. The most used tools are the closest to you, and
the least often ones hang just below the ceiling.

Because you *want* a lot of tools, in the repair shop
and even more so in the software world because here
they won't even fill the room you are in and you don't
have to bother organizing everything and do the old
care of kit (which I enjoy, but that's beside the
point).

This minimalist hysteria is a misconception. We *do*
want tools and power - the more the better - just not
in our faces until the moment they are used.
People think of features as pop-ups and buttons and
irritating blink-blink - there is in fact no such
implication, and if it is, don't blame the features!

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Barry Margolin]

In article <mailman.3870.1432848476.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 Paul Smith <paul@mad-scientist.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 2015-05-28 at 22:07 +0100, Phillip Lord wrote:
> > I remember a friend of mine complaining about this. A new release of
> > Emacs, now half the keybindings will have changed. Never having seen a
> > new release of Emacs, I stuck with the old version for quite a while.
> 
> I think this is an overstatement: the keys I use 99% of the time every
> day haven't changed since I started using Emacs, which was a REALLY long
> time ago.  What keybindings are we talking about?

It doesn't matter if only a few keybindings have changed, if they happen 
to include something that his friend used frequently. To him, it seems 
like a major change.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Rainer M Krug]

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Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:
>
>> You might be interested in this comment (the only
>> one so far, it seems), from a veteran Electrical
>> Engineer in Santa Clara, CA:
>>
>>     ... At the age of eighteen, my fingers learned
>>     to build emacs keyboard macros and I think I can
>>     use them in my sleep. I still use GNUemacs (and
>>     Aquamacs) every day.
>
> Again this emphasis on keyboard macros I never
> understood it and never did it - but so many people
> often bring it up first thing! I always thought of it
> as poor man's programming, and I still do, but perhaps
> I'm wrong again as so many people likes and uses it
> so much.
>
>> Since, aside from venues such as the present one,
>> I eschew use of all media tar babies such as the
>> FacebookianInstaTwitterverse, you'd think I'd
>> cocooned myself far from the "app" madding crowd.
>
> It is really depressing but it is better not to use
> and not to think of it. "Don't hate the software,
> become the software." Or, write new interfaces to get
> just what you like, the way you like it.
>
> I recently mentioned my w3m hacks. But there are many
> big projects like that as well. I recently discovered
> the Debian package mps-youtube (with /usr/bin/mpsyt)
> which allows you to access the whole YT media archive
> from the shell, and with super-speed and power to
> extract just what you look for. Wonderful!

Dam it - I had to try mps-youtube, and now I lost nearly an hour to
browsing youtube because of you - youtube was never that much fun!

Thanks,

Rainer
>
>>     Sometimes I wish that all software types would
>>     just Stop Doing Stuff.
>>
>> Alas, one person's shiny new "modernization" is
>> another person's annoying
>> Clippy-the-not-so-helpful-helper.
>
> Oh, no! Not this again!
>
> Yes, it is "true" in a literal sense but the beneath
> attitude is destructive and even incorrect!
>
> The constructive approach which doesn't suffer from
> the problem is: add as much useful stuff as possible,
> but don't put it where anyone sees it and don't have
> it interfere with anything else, and when the time
> comes and when it is needed it is right there!
>
> In a bicycle repair shop there are a lot of tools as
> it should. So a good idea is to hang them on the walls
> so you can still have the bikes and move around on the
> floor. The most used tools are the closest to you, and
> the least often ones hang just below the ceiling.
>
> Because you *want* a lot of tools, in the repair shop
> and even more so in the software world because here
> they won't even fill the room you are in and you don't
> have to bother organizing everything and do the old
> care of kit (which I enjoy, but that's beside the
> point).
>
> This minimalist hysteria is a misconception. We *do*
> want tools and power - the more the better - just not
> in our faces until the moment they are used.
> People think of features as pop-ups and buttons and
> irritating blink-blink - there is in fact no such
> implication, and if it is, don't blame the features!

-- 
Rainer M. Krug
email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982

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Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Chris Van Dusen]

On May 28, 2015, at 7:16 PM, Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
> In article <mailman.3870.1432848476.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
> Paul Smith <paul@mad-scientist.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 2015-05-28 at 22:07 +0100, Phillip Lord wrote:
>>> I remember a friend of mine complaining about this. A new release of
>>> Emacs, now half the keybindings will have changed. Never having seen a
>>> new release of Emacs, I stuck with the old version for quite a while.
>> 
>> I think this is an overstatement: the keys I use 99% of the time every
>> day haven't changed since I started using Emacs, which was a REALLY long
>> time ago.  What keybindings are we talking about?
> 
> It doesn't matter if only a few keybindings have changed, if they happen 
> to include something that his friend used frequently. To him, it seems 
> like a major change.
> 

e.g.  http://xkcd.com/1172/ <http://xkcd.com/1172/>


> -- 
> Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
> Arlington, MA
> *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Chris.

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[ken]

On 05/28/2015 03:11 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> Yesterday (5-28-15) I was listening to a NPR - John Hockenberry -
>> "The Takeaway" session and starting about 45 minutes after the hour
>> is a discussion which begins with emacs and then  progresses to open
>> source software in general.
>
> [ Sorry, no headphones to listen to the talk here.  ]
> Does it talk about Free Software as well?
>
>
>          Stefan

They didn't really nail down the concept of FOSS, but just sort of 
contrasted "slow" software (e.g., Emacs) with commercial  software, 
e.g., Word.

It was more a touchy-feeling kind of talk, hit me like a woman talking 
about the joys of growing her own flax and with that making her own 
dresses and how she's more comfortable and satisfied in that than buying 
something off the shelf.  Characterizing emacs (and other FOSS) as 
"slow" didn't however, I think, do us any favors.  I'm sure a lot of 
people are going to miss the meaning and think, "I want *fast* software. 
  Why would anybody want *slow* software!?"

If the overall point could have been made better and with clearly 
unambiguous terms, it would have been much better.  Just last week on 
another (non-technical) list someone asked, 'What software should I use 
for organizing my taxes?'  She didn't say what OS she was using and I 
was pretty sure she was looking for a GUI app.  I wanted to tell her 
that she could accomplish that just by using a sensible directory 
structure and meaningful filenames, but I didn't bother.  I've already 
tried several times on that list to recommend _easy_ FOSS solutions, but 
people these days always want to buy an app or rent a service for every 
need they have and it's impossible to convince them otherwise.  Indeed, 
a few years ago my boss, a young MBA, karate-chop guy, was looking for 
an app to create a network connection once a day between a Unix machine 
in one city and a linux box in our server room.  I told him that 
capability was already built into the OSs.  He'd read an article which 
convinced him the app needed to do de-duplication (copy the files to be 
transferred to another drive first).  I said we could do that in-house 
too.  Then he said he wanted _support_ for the "app".  At that point I 
gave up.  You can give a thirsty clown a glass of cool water, but if he 
won't take off his big, red nose, he won't be able to drink it.

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Emanuel Berg]

Rainer M Krug <Rainer@krugs.de> writes:

> Dam it - I had to try mps-youtube, and now I lost
> nearly an hour to browsing youtube because of you -
> youtube was never that much fun!

You better belive it. "Hey brother, there is an
endless world to rediscover..."

Here is a screenshot:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/mps-youtube.png

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Emacs discussed on US NPR

[Eric S Fraga]

On Thursday, 28 May 2015 at 22:01, Phillip Lord wrote:
> But explaining the pleasure of making your own computer environment is
> a little more esoteric.

Oh, how true!  I've given up trying mostly but sometimes it's fun to
give others a different perspective...

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, GnuPG: 0xFFFCF67D
: in Emacs 24.4.1 + Ma Gnus v0.14 + evil-git-ff74cfb
: BBDB version 3.1.2 (2015-05-23 14:39:47 -0500)