From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ilya Zakharevich Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Rapidly navigating buffers using search Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 21:39:24 +0000 (UTC) Organization: U.C. Berkeley Math. Department. Message-ID: References: <20100707064305.GF31621@groll.co.za> <20100707080139.GA18906@groll.co.za> <9dc07ed9-f6f1-4ac5-949a-5b97368cc32a@n19g2000prf.googlegroups.com> <87mxu22rbc.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291843567 7188 80.91.229.12 (8 Dec 2010 21:26:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 21:26:07 +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 Dec 08 22:26:03 2010 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 1PQRWU-0000oG-NV for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:26:02 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:34202 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQRWU-0006xT-0Z for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:26:02 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsgate.cistron.nl!newsgate.news.xs4all.nl!news2.euro.net!feeder.news-service.com!85.214.198.2.MISMATCH!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs Original-Lines: 36 Injection-Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 21:39:24 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="LlLjF8LevGdIZWbTvv+SXA"; logging-data="25494"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18JaH6vWn1THRjxjENHJS0y" User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.1pl1 (Linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:LN9bDr6/aD4yDEd5W1sJ4xWhdIo= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:179669 comp.emacs:100170 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:76043 Archived-At: On 2010-07-08, David Kastrup wrote: > their documents by mostly visual manipulation of their text without > having a clue about underlying structures like references, style sheets > and so on. The result is unmaintainable crap, but they would not know > better. Word tries keeping up in this battle of computer illiteracy by > doing things like enumerations, styles and so on "automagically", > second-guessing the user, and the user tries second-guessing Word in > order to get around that. I suspect that you wanted to say that you find this situation disagreeable. Just think about that: would this opinion of yours persist if Word had a clearly documented way to switch off guessing (completely, and/or per particular heuristics)? > It is an escalation of mutual cluelessness. Partially, this is true. But only at a small part (like M$'s stupidity in not making the guessing optional). The major thing which you are missing is that the escalation also happens in `having people get what they wanted in the first place' (usually "getting the work done"). (Although users-conditioning-via-designer's-cluelessness also takes place - hmm, this is just another way to state the same as you did...) > The more userfriendly a piece of software becomes, the more this > becomes a problem for _competent_ people willing to learn about > their tool. BS. There is no direct connection. > I have no idea what to do to make people lean towards looking at the > documentation. Just don't. (Addressed in another message in this thread.) Yours, Ilya