From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs: Problems of the Scratch Buffer Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:07:46 +0300 Message-ID: <83pqb1goul.fsf@gnu.org> References: <1bqkr.13803$mL3.9455@newsfe23.iad> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1335017303 27632 80.91.229.3 (21 Apr 2012 14:08:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:08:23 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Apr 21 16:08:23 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SLaz7-00076d-OH for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:08:21 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34376 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SLaz6-0001RP-TP for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:08:20 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:46218) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SLaz2-0001Qo-1u for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:08:17 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SLayz-0003Ye-Rn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:08:15 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout21.012.net.il ([80.179.55.169]:34843) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SLayz-0003YW-Jk for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:08:13 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout21.012.net.il by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0M2U00B001OO0G00@a-mtaout21.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:07:40 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([84.229.172.156]) by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0M2U00A9P1WSV380@a-mtaout21.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:07:40 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 (beta) X-Received-From: 80.179.55.169 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:84555 Archived-At: > From: Chiron > Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:35:28 GMT > > On Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:36:27 +0200, Thien-Thi Nguyen wrote: > > > () Chiron () Sat, 21 Apr > > 2012 03:53:33 GMT > > > > The current maintainers have absolutely no incentive to try to make > > emacs appealing to the masses. > > > > Maybe, maybe not. > > If they had an incentive to make emacs appealing to the masses, they'd do > it. Since they aren't doing it, I think it's clear that they don't have > the incentive. They have and they do, just watch the changes made in the last few major releases. It could be that the pace is not to your liking, or that your most beloved feature didn't (yet) get in, but that doesn't yet justify the extreme conclusions that you seem to have reached, and now are spreading all over. > Unless the current maintainers are confused, they *already* have > emacs pretty much the way they want it. No good maintainer ever stops evolving in his/her habits nor becomes deaf to wishes of the users. I suggest that you read the emacs-devel list for a while, and I'm sure you will see how incorrect the above judgment is. > What the complainer was suggesting was that new people - maintainers, > programmers, whoever - would *change* emacs, which would make emacs less > the way the current maintainers want it, and more the way others would > want it. Maintaining a package is never about a battle of wills of the kind you seem to envision. So your mental model of how this works is simply wrong. Again, you should read emacs-devel to see the actual state of affairs. > A. We think you should change emacs to be the way we want it. > > B. Well, we like it the way it is. > > A. No, you're too old-fashioned or hidebound; you need to get with the > program. You need to make emacs a tool for modern programming practices. > > B. Why? It works for us. > > A. But it doesn't work for us! > > B. Um... You won't find this on emacs-devel. So this line of reasoning will never bring any change. Several people in this thread explained why (a) *scratch* is useful for them and (b) does not necessarily get in your way, unless you insist (e.g., by using the -Q switch). If someone has constructive proposals for how to make that buffer even less prominent, please post your suggestions to emacs-devel, or file "wishlist" bug reports to the Emacs bug-tracker. Arguing that *scratch* should be removed entirely is a non-starter, since a non-negligible portion of users find it useful, but I sincerely don't see why reasonable people would want that, if we can find less extreme ways of getting it out of the way of those who don't need it.