From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Andreas_R=F6hler?= Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Efforts to attract more users? Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:40:31 +0200 Message-ID: <4C57B9DF.1060306@online.de> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1280817736 27247 80.91.229.12 (3 Aug 2010 06:42:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 06:42:16 +0000 (UTC) Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 03 08:42:14 2010 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 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OgBCY-00045Y-EF for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:42:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:58838 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OgBCX-0001q2-GM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:42:13 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=35816 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OgBCR-0001pw-8x for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:42:08 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OgBCP-0005bp-St for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:42:07 -0400 Original-Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de ([212.227.17.9]:53059) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OgBCP-0005bI-AE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:42:05 -0400 Original-Received: from [192.168.178.27] (p5DDB0A80.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [93.219.10.128]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (node=mrbap0) with ESMTP (Nemesis) id 0M4Tee-1OuOBw49ee-00yzRa; Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:42:01 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de; rv:1.9.1.11) Gecko/20100711 Thunderbird/3.0.6 In-Reply-To: X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:8B1db/70GG9cEU3StQFZrn3hJvrSETa80aKb8cghOJY BHaNOYvZBb13Ihpg5yk7eePPaeLBWapjG0f5GD0QgZwg83wFBX VHsA92vkg9JpjSDrtGSHNM5un4EE4bEkPHDBGT6G+iecUHj51H vfzqCn/14O6iLIfOVl0cPGnuVEfeBiex+mu+ri+CVGlg0Pih56 JPK15m/FAbIQUKBAyYH30C4uz2MzjDunbK4R2dJOkA= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. 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:128177 Archived-At: Am 02.08.2010 22:15, schrieb Stefan Monnier: >>>> I'm not sure if Emacs is attracting new users the way it used to be. >>>> Certainly search volume has been going downhill for more than several years >>>> (http://www.google.com/trends?q=emacs), >>>> >>> What are the units in the vertical direction? >>> >> 1.0 is the mean of the period >> > So units are a ratio w.r.t all the searches. Is there a way to know the > actual number of searches to which this corresponds? This way we could > tell whether the number of searches is also going down (since it might > still be going up if the ratio is going down slower than the total > number of searches increases). > > > Stefan > > > Hi Stefan, with respect to attracting new users, Emacs could do better right at the entrance: Emacs tutorial starts explaining NOTICE: The main purpose of the Emacs tutorial is to teach you the most important standard Emacs commands (key bindings). and proceeds that way walking the desert. My suggestion: leave the keys aside at the very beginning, tell user what Emacs is and why it should be used. The WHY for me is its extensibility. Instead of keys, I'd show with the first lines, how a function like "Go to the end" is easily changed: (defun stop-always-two-lines-before-end () "This function will put the cursor at the second line from bottom up. " (interactive) (end-of-buffer) (forward-line -2)) BTW a missing function `backward-line' points to another issue, Emacs may enhance in order to attract new users. Thanks a lot for all your efforts Andreas -- https://code.launchpad.net/~a-roehler/python-mode https://code.launchpad.net/s-x-emacs-werkstatt/