Re: GNU Emacs raison d'etre

[Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net>]

Aloha everyone,

I'm getting into this a bit late, but I have a slightly
contrarian view.

I certainly agree with the idea that Emacs is a tool that,
like all serious and complex tools, requires effort, and a
measure of how good the tool is can be found in how well the
effort is rewarded. With Emacs my experience has been that the
rewards are enormous, even if the effort involved is certainly
non-trivial. But is there any high-caliber tool (in any field of
endeavor) that doesn't require effort to master?

But let me contradict myself a little. I have been using Emacs
literally for decades, and have not "mastered" it, in the
sense that while I have what are to me sophisticated use
cases, I learn new things all the time. That is a tribute to
the power and depth of Emacs, and I consider this a positive
feature--- I'm always learning new ways to get even more out
of the tool. So, does Emacs take a day or three weeks or four
months or years to "master"? It should be an ongoing, layered
experience.

The difficulty here for newcomers (as I have alluded to in
other threads) is the current "instant gratification"
mentality: the attitude that if I can't get into something
quickly and with minimal effort, I'm not interested.

I first learned Emacs through the tutorial. If a newcomer were
to spend a couple of hours with the tutorial, basic usage
would be immediately possible and there would be an enticing
glimpse of things to come. I was at least minimally productive
with Emacs within part of an afternoon. Is that good enough? I
think so, but it does require a least some willingness to
branch out into the unfamiliar.

A week later, I could do more things. A year later, I could do
a lot of things. Decades later, it's an indispensible tool
with "killer" features such as org-mode and (yes!) gnus
... and as I said above, there are always new things.

If newcomers could be enticed with a layered approach, I think
some of them, at least the ones for whom Emacs is long-term
suitable, may see the advantages and follow the path; and long
though it may be, they will be increasingly more productive
along the way. This implies more tutorials, organized in this
layered manner. It's important, though, to be able to do the
basics in a relatively short time. But that's already possible.

The existing tutorial in fact does really cover the
essentials. The "must-know" features (after learning how to
move the cursor and so on) are C-g and 'undo'. Learn those and
you can always get out of a spot; and the tutorial is very
clear on this.

Now here's the contrarian part: Emacs uses different
terminology, different keybindings, and an overall different
approach from many Unix tools and certainly from Windows
tools. Should we (optionally for newcomers) change that?

I say 'no' and the reason is that from the get-go, I think
potential new users should understand that Emacs is different,
is built on a different paradigm, and does things in a
different way. In the long run, it's embracing these
differences that makes Emacs the tool that it is.

I'd submit that if the differences fatally deter a newcomer,
then perhaps that newcomer was never an Emacs candidate. And
I'll add my usual disclaimer: I do /not/ view Emacs as a tool
for some sort of snobbish elite to which you gain entrance
only through initiation rites and having the proper
pedigree. Emacs, in fact, is a tool for anyone who is willing
to invest in it.

Finally, as a sort of illustrative footnote: there is a
terminal-based text editor called "Fe, the folding editor"
written long ago by Michael Haart (moria.de). It isn't well
know and isn't in any Gnu-Linux distros that I'm aware of. It
is really a minimalist (non-extensible) Emacs to the extent
that it uses Emacs keybinding and contains just enough
essential features (like keyboard macros) to make it very
useful for many text editing use cases. It more or less
represents the level of productivity I had achieved after maybe
a couple of days with Emacs way back when. But that is an
amazingly useful amount.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i

- Via GNU/Linux/Emacs/Gnus/BBDB