Re: gathering data on how people use Emacs

[Mike Mattie <codermattie@gmail.com>]

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:32:02 +0100
Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Polling the users is not a matter of simply counting votes.
> > The most important part of the answer is "why".
> > What is the scenario in which a certain feature is helpful
> > or inconvenient?  What aspect of it is helpful or
> > inconvenient?
> 
> Fully agreed.  
> 
> I suggested simple questions, not simple answers.
> 
> > Thus, trying to use better technology to count votes is missing
> > the point of the poll.
> 
> Yes.  The whole point of using the form I proposed is precisely to get
> detailed comments and scenarii, not raw yes/no.
> 
> If people suggest a list of questions and associated fields for such a
> poll, I'd happily draft a new one.
> 

Here are some basic questions I thought of to give some context.
It's hard to ask directly for the information you want without loading the questions, so I fell
back on some basic background information as a starting place.

What was the motive or appeal that sustained your climb of the Emacs learning curve ?

What quality keeps Emacs indispensable ?

Years of Emacs Experience ?

Programming Experience: 0-9

Primary applications, or what do you use Emacs for pre-dominantly ? apps,web dev, books ?

Native language ?

Age ?

use of mouse ? 0-4

Most useful Modes ?

Least useful Modes ?

Size of .emacs ?

How do you go about learning a new Emacs feature you need ?

subscribed to emacs-devel y/n

subscribed to help-gnu-emacs y/n

systems you use Emacs on ? (autoconf triplets)

Emacs version ?

External Elisp packages used: (significant to daily workflow at least)

Most difficult command to learn ?

Easiest command to learn ?

command with best DWIM ?

command with worst DWIM ?

Use marks for ? (what is a mark should be a valid answer) 

favorite movie/book ? (throw at least one fun question in just so people don't get bored filling out a survey.
Could do the "top 5" for the fun question).

Cheers,
Mike Mattie

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