emacs-oob-reboot

emacs-oob-reboot

[Damian Chrzanowski]

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Hello, 

Forwarding a suggestion about out of the box improvements to emacs on Jostein Kjønigsen repo :

There's a lot of talk on reddit already about new improvements "breaking" things, people's configs suffering, key bindings reconfigured, etc. Therefore, I suggest that on first load emacs should ask the user about key binding preferences :

1. I have my own .el files, ask me where they are Emacs so that you can import them (from GitHub, zip files, etc.)
2. I want emacs standard keyboard bindings please
3. I want Cua mode so that Emacs behaves like "popular" editors
4. I want Vim-like modal editing key bindings (this option will install evil and a few evil extras, hypothetically).
5. Whatever else is out there???

Let's not fool ourselves, editor wars are silly and childish. What we want to do is create a more attractive and mature environment and I believe that this will represent a more open approach. This approach will also show, at the very beginning, just how flexible Emacs is and that it can be modified to any preferences.

I am of a strong opinion that a lot of folks would simply put Emacs away based on the fact that they felt forced to use Ctrl +... to move around. Well... Let's move on and show that Emacs is much more than that!

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Re: emacs-oob-reboot

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 06 May 2017 07:13:37 +0100
> From: Damian Chrzanowski <pjdamian.chrzanowski@gmail.com>
> 
> There's a lot of talk on reddit already about new improvements "breaking" things, people's configs suffering,
> key bindings reconfigured, etc.

FWIW, we try to minimize such breakage, and have the information about
getting back the old behavior in NEWS which goes with each new release.

> Therefore, I suggest that on first load emacs should ask the user about key
> binding preferences :
> 
> 1. I have my own .el files, ask me where they are Emacs so that you can import them (from GitHub, zip files,
> etc.)
> 2. I want emacs standard keyboard bindings please
> 3. I want Cua mode so that Emacs behaves like "popular" editors
> 4. I want Vim-like modal editing key bindings (this option will install evil and a few evil extras, hypothetically).
> 5. Whatever else is out there???

If your key bindings are recorded on init files of any kind that Emacs
processes during startup, they will be largely unaffected by changes
in new Emacs versions.  So I'm not sure what problem you are asking to
solve by this proposal.

> Let's not fool ourselves, editor wars are silly and childish. What we want to do is create a more attractive and
> mature environment and I believe that this will represent a more open approach. This approach will also
> show, at the very beginning, just how flexible Emacs is and that it can be modified to any preferences.
> 
> I am of a strong opinion that a lot of folks would simply put Emacs away based on the fact that they felt forced
> to use Ctrl +... to move around. Well... Let's move on and show that Emacs is much more than that!

That's okay, and that's why Emacs provides customization features.
You should be able to customize your keybindings once, and have those
customizations be in effect for many Emacs versions.

Re: emacs-oob-reboot

[Damian Chrzanowski]

On Sat, 06 May 2017 10:36:12 +0300
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > Date: Sat, 06 May 2017 07:13:37 +0100
> > From: Damian Chrzanowski <pjdamian.chrzanowski@gmail.com>
> > 
> > There's a lot of talk on reddit already about new improvements
> > "breaking" things, people's configs suffering, key bindings
> > reconfigured, etc.  
> 
> FWIW, we try to minimize such breakage, and have the information about
> getting back the old behavior in NEWS which goes with each new
> release.
> 
> > Therefore, I suggest that on first load emacs should ask the user
> > about key binding preferences :
> > 
> > 1. I have my own .el files, ask me where they are Emacs so that you
> > can import them (from GitHub, zip files, etc.)
> > 2. I want emacs standard keyboard bindings please
> > 3. I want Cua mode so that Emacs behaves like "popular" editors
> > 4. I want Vim-like modal editing key bindings (this option will
> > install evil and a few evil extras, hypothetically). 5. Whatever
> > else is out there???  
> 
> If your key bindings are recorded on init files of any kind that Emacs
> processes during startup, they will be largely unaffected by changes
> in new Emacs versions.  So I'm not sure what problem you are asking to
> solve by this proposal.
> 

Sorry I should have made it more clear in what I meant in this section.
There is a new initiative
https://github.com/josteink/emacs-oob-reboot to revamp Emacs' defaults,
and make it more modern ! One of the proposals (in terms of
attractiveness for new users) is the option to automatically setup
keybindings upon Emacs' first run. All I am trying to say is that I
believe that this functionality would most certainly attract a new
user, as most users (like myself at the beginning) were terrified of
Ctrl + ... for navigation. It would be a nice and thoughtful touch and
I am nearly certain that it could draw users of other editors to start
using Emacs. The more users we have the better the software potentially
can become.

> > Let's not fool ourselves, editor wars are silly and childish. What
> > we want to do is create a more attractive and mature environment
> > and I believe that this will represent a more open approach. This
> > approach will also show, at the very beginning, just how flexible
> > Emacs is and that it can be modified to any preferences.
> > 
> > I am of a strong opinion that a lot of folks would simply put Emacs
> > away based on the fact that they felt forced to use Ctrl +... to
> > move around. Well... Let's move on and show that Emacs is much more
> > than that!  
> 
> That's okay, and that's why Emacs provides customization features.
> You should be able to customize your keybindings once, and have those
> customizations be in effect for many Emacs versions.

Yes I agree, although I suggest a better out of the box experience for
future Emacs releases.

Re: emacs-oob-reboot

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 6 May 2017 11:38:48 +0100
> From: Damian Chrzanowski <pjdamian.chrzanowski@gmail.com>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> There is a new initiative
> https://github.com/josteink/emacs-oob-reboot to revamp Emacs' defaults,
> and make it more modern !

I've seen that project.  It for now includes only a handful of
non-default settings, so IMO it's still too early to judge whether
these changes will satisfy enough users to make them the default.  The
crucial stage, which always comes sooner or later, is when some users
want a certain value, while others want a different value.

It is quite possible that, with enough user experience and feedback,
some of these changes should be considered for the core.

> One of the proposals (in terms of
> attractiveness for new users) is the option to automatically setup
> keybindings upon Emacs' first run.

Where did you see that proposal?  It isn't in the above URL.  The
Reddit discussion is very long, and I'm not sure which part of it are
you alluding to.

Re: emacs-oob-reboot

[Damian Chrzanowski]

On Sat, 06 May 2017 14:02:22 +0300
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> I've seen that project.  It for now includes only a handful of
> non-default settings, so IMO it's still too early to judge whether
> these changes will satisfy enough users to make them the default.  The
> crucial stage, which always comes sooner or later, is when some users
> want a certain value, while others want a different value.
> 
> It is quite possible that, with enough user experience and feedback,
> some of these changes should be considered for the core.
> 

I understand that it is a very early stage to be even considering
modifying anything in the base version. However the initiative is out
there.

> Where did you see that proposal?  It isn't in the above URL.  The
> Reddit discussion is very long, and I'm not sure which part of it are
> you alluding to.

That proposal is of my own
https://github.com/josteink/emacs-oob-reboot/issues/8 Jostein Kjønigsen
suggested to e-mail emacs