From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: What a modern collaboration toolkit looks like Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:24 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20080101021624.GA6764@thyrsus.com> References: <20071230122217.3CA84830B9A@snark.thyrsus.com> <20071231130712.GB8641@thyrsus.com> <20071231214108.GD26639@thyrsus.com> <87fxxi1k4k.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <20080101010654.GJ26639@thyrsus.com> <87ejd2z5jm.fsf@catnip.gol.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199153794 26286 80.91.229.12 (1 Jan 2008 02:16:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 02:16:34 +0000 (UTC) Cc: esr@snark.thyrsus.com, Eli Zaretskii , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Miles Bader Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 01 03:16:48 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1J9WgR-0007xN-TF for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 03:16:48 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9Wg6-0001DI-3t for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:26 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9Wg1-0001AA-LI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:21 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9Wfz-00016N-A9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:20 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9Wfz-00016C-7R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:19 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5] helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J9Wfs-0006Sc-9x; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:12 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 23) id B558A830B84; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:16:24 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87ejd2z5jm.fsf@catnip.gol.com> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:85794 Archived-At: Miles Bader : > "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > > They're not fashionistas. They have a belief, which is not badly founded > > given the evidence available to them, that the Emacs project is old, > > tired, badly run, and effectively moribund. > > Are they judging the software, or the "project"? Fair question. I caught a little of both. I'm not sure they're clearly distinguished in the critics' thinking. David Matuszek (star CS professor at UPenn) has been griping at me for years about things like features he relied upon disappearing during version upgrades. He's made it very clear that he thinks this sort of thing is a symptom of inattention to what users are actually doing with the software by developers too obsessed with the next cool hack. I think that counts as both software and project croticism. Cyndy (AI researcher, Dave's daughter, formerly with Doug Lenat's Cyc project and now doing a six-year gig in Seattle) didn't particularly slam the software, but was entertainingly rude about CVS. One of her milder remarks was to the effect that "Somebody needs to remind RMS what year it is." There wasn't much I could say about this project criticism given that I pretty completely agree with it. Matt, whose last name I didn't catch but who I think is a software designer at Google, came the closest to having a "fashionista" position; he thinks Eclipse's UI makes Emacs's look paleolithic. There was someone else in the discussion who's a doctoral candidate at CMU doing research in language design -- I don't remember what her gripe was but she sure wasn't giving Emacs any love. It was rather unnerving. > [Note that I'm all for moving to more modern tools. Subversion is > probably not a great choice though -- if we're going to change, we > should change to one of the distributed systems like git.] Agreed, one of the 3Gs would be better. I'm doing a technical survey paper on them now; I'll be *extremely* well equipped to choose one well-fitted for the Emacs project's needs when that's done. -- Eric S. Raymond