From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Is Emacs very alive, active and improving? Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 01:54:31 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <878uy0fzqn.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> References: <87pprkbodk.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> <5d0ea74d-527c-4c19-a9d6-596bec4a4c6b@googlegroups.com> <878uy2b59p.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> <9c485a2d-1e2a-4c38-b04a-db69db9b5bc2@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1381449317 19399 80.91.229.3 (10 Oct 2013 23:55:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 23:55:17 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Oct 11 01:55:22 2013 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 1VUQ4c-0001L1-Nh for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Oct 2013 01:55:18 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51751 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VUQ4b-0002gE-QU for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Oct 2013 19:55:17 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!news2.arglkargh.de!news.mixmin.net!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 41 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: VVbyYd/iFZoeWNmD9i++cQ.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:lR9uAhNTVxK87WkE0whqQC0ysV8= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:201663 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:93932 Archived-At: Rustom Mody writes: > Thanks for that picture. It confirms my personal > hunchy feel that 20 years ago emacs-vi were kind of > neck to neck; whereas today emacs is increasingly in > the category: "Whazzat??" for young programmers. I don't know how young "young programmers" are. Lots of guys start at 12 and they don't know what an editor or an IDE is, they just code whatever they have, be it Visual Basic 5.0 (because that's installed on their parent's PC), HyperCard (ditto Mac), or the BASIC for their TI-83 calculator (actually, those examples are probably outdated, but you get the idea). Those kids can code pretty advanced stuff reading tutorials on the web, and those "Learn X in zero time"-books. But all the terminology ("recursion", "nested", etc. etc.), as well as all the Unix stuff (aliases, the shell, etc. etc.) are typically lost for those kids. But it's no big deal because they can pick that up much faster than a general scientist, who cannot write code, will pick up programming (which might even be impossible). A lot of math people are worthless programmers, for example, because the reason in terms of "pure", "clean", etc., which isn't what programming is about. But I digress... what I wanted to tell you is: when I started study CS, we all got a book on Unix. It was written by students, which was noticeable, and a lot of the details I didn't like. But I read it two times, so I guess I liked it, on second thoughts. In that book, there were *two* ambitious chapters on Emacs. There weren't much Elisp but general usage was covered well. Vim wasn't mentioned. I'm not making a point, I'm just saying it, because that was the case. -- Emanuel Berg, programmer-for-rent. CV, projects, etc at uXu underground experts united: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573