Re: emacs for everything?

[floyd@barrow.com (Floyd L. Davidson)]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
>Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@barrow.com> wrote on Tue, 16 Nov 2004 04:20:48 -0900:
>
>All joking aside, you're making the mistake of assuming that everybody
>works like you do, and therefore your setup is universally optimal.  This
>isn't the case.

Your post wasn't even a good troll, much less much of a joke.
Can't you do better?

>It seems that you are an extreme "optical" worker, doing most of your
>work with your eyes.  You _need_ everything on your sticky screens at the
>same time.  If something isn't currently displayed, you kind of forget
>it's there - a bit like a baby up till the age of (?) 6 months.  At a
>guess, your manual dexterity probably isn't that well developed, which is
>why you find the mouse so attractive.  The mouse has got to be about the
>most clunky inefficient device ever invented, at least for anybody with a
>modicum of dexterity.
>
>I'm an extreme "manual" worker, doing nearly _all_ my work with my
>fingers and brain.  (In my spare time, I play a musical instrument.)  I
>can only usefully see one thing at a time on a computer screen, yet I
>retain in my brain a copy of where everything is - When using the input
>area, for example, I rarely even notice that it's at the bottom of the
>screen - my fingers type, my brain retainng an image of what I have just
>typed, and my eyes stay focussed on the text I'm working with.
>_Anything_ else on the screen is a distraction to me, even things like
>scroll-bars.  And dialogue boxes exploding into my face are sheer
>purgatory.  For me, Emacs on a console, with shift/control/alt arrow key
>combinations bound to movement and scrolling commands is optimal.
>
>Your mileage varies.  So does mine.

It does appear that what is a straight jacket to me is just a
snug warm wrapper (with blinders) to you.  You lack the ability
to make use of the extra functionality, so there is no point in
distracting you with functionality that is, for you, overly
complex.

I would like to know how you use your fingers and brain to
remember the _current_ time on a clock that you do not display?
(As just one very trivial example of how limited your described
environment is in a real world.)

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson           <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@barrow.com