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: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 17:49:40 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20080101224940.GA13164@thyrsus.com> References: <20071230122217.3CA84830B9A@snark.thyrsus.com> <20071231130712.GB8641@thyrsus.com> <20080101171120.GC3830@muc.de> <20080101193731.GA10056@thyrsus.com> <20080101214621.GH3830@muc.de> 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 1199227780 13364 80.91.229.12 (1 Jan 2008 22:49:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 22:49:40 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Eric S. Raymond" , Eli Zaretskii , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 01 23:50:00 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 1J9pvq-0000bR-Vd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:49:59 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9pvV-00027t-6l for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:49:37 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9pvR-00026v-D8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:49:33 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9pvP-00026a-W1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:49:33 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9pvP-00026V-Oq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:49:31 -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 1J9pvM-0000kt-1A; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:49:28 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 23) id E8D30830B84; Tue, 1 Jan 2008 17:49:40 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080101214621.GH3830@muc.de> 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:85827 Archived-At: Alan Mackenzie : > Emacs DOES need new features (refactoring, better > browsing, etc.), but those are rarely obvious to the new people we need. I think more direct interaction between the users and the developer community might help with this. On the Wesnoth project, most of our new devs are people who have been lurking on #wesnoth-dev for a while before they send their first patch. So they've been listening to the developers talk among themselves about what needs done. A public bugtracker will help here, too. Another common entry path is for someone who might want to get more involved to pick a feature request, do it, and send a patch to the dev list. > It's more of a long term problem, in that the number of Emacs users might > be gradually declining. I'm only guessing here though, I don't know. I have no data on this, just an uneasy gut feeling. > HEY, THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!! You've distorted my post by selective deletion. > When I said CVS was good, I qualified clearly what I meant by reference > to hammers, nails and screws. Er....I was not the only person to read your note as fairly unqualified praise of CVS. But never mind. > OK, here's where you need to persuade me (?us). There have been lots of > bugs in CC Mode where I've had to dig myself in without distractions for > hours at a time, sometimes days, to resolve; bits of Emacs are like that > - some hackers are like this. I've been able to emerge and engage in the > mailing list. I don't think I could do this with a rapid-fire IRC > instead of email. Richard has said he couldn't spare the time for this > style of hacking. I believe him. I don't experience any difficulty digging in like this. When you need to, you tell your IRC client "/away" and it announces to the channel that you are away from keyboard. When you're ready to surface, skim the IRC scroll buffer and type "/back". If your experience is like mine, you'll find you start being able to glance at the chatter occasionally without breaking your flow, the same way you can sort of half-consciously monitor quiet speech around you without breaking conversation until you hear something that tells you you need to pay attention. > A web browser is for browsing the web, and is pretty cruddy for anything > else. For email you'd use mutt, for documentation C-h i, for usenet tin > or slrn, and so on. Surely there's a purpose built tty client for IRC. Oh, yes, sure. Boatloads of them. ircii is one of the best known. -- Eric S. Raymond