From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs learning curve Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:48:50 +0900 Message-ID: <87k4o4qwvh.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <10954D02-E217-49F3-8824-757DA34074AB@gmail.com> <83zkxzakr0.fsf@gnu.org> <83pqyva8ms.fsf@gnu.org> <878w4mrtdd.fsf@roquesor.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1281063002 15730 80.91.229.12 (6 Aug 2010 02:50:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 02:50:02 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Barry Fishman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Aug 06 04:49:59 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 1OhD0O-0000io-M2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:49:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:35801 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OhD0O-0004H6-7r for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:49:56 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=49912 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OhD0I-0004Gr-0j for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:49:51 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OhD0H-0006hP-0y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:49:49 -0400 Original-Received: from mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:34144) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OhD0G-0006hE-HI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:49:48 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60BC1820D; Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:49:46 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id ED5DA1A46B2; Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:48:50 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM 8.0.12-devo-585 under 21.5 (beta29) "garbanzo" ed3b274cc037 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) 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:128343 Archived-At: Barry Fishman writes: > Why is learning something different a bad thing? Learning something different is not a bad thing. Learning something different *unnecessarily* sucks, though. It sucks for the individual, it sucks for society, and it sucks for free software. You give an excellent example: > One of the benefits of Emacs was that on the occasions I needed to > move from my usual Unix-like systems to Windows, I was able to > install and run Emacs and get my mail, editing, and printing setups > working. [...] If it is only a short term task under the new OS, > much of that (mis-)learning can be avoided. This works in reverse for people migrating from Windows to *nix or performing short-term tasks in *nix. Since encouraging people to move away from proprietary systems like Windows is a goal (*the* goal?) of the GNU Project, Emacs *should* *consider* whether specific measures claimed to make it easier for people to make the move are worthwhile. Personally, for changing the keymap I think the answer is "no" (for the reasons you give among others, specifically Windows-a-like GNOME programs are a dime a dozen -- and even so overpriced), but it's *not* a no-brainer (except for people who are stuck on "no" because they have no brain). It's something that deserves a bit of rethinking every once in a while. Mostly for the effect it will have of focusing attention on alternative ways to encourage migration to free software via Emacs. > Shouldn't the free software efforts be focused on making computers > a more worthwhile and enriching environment than in making > proprietary environments cheaper? That's two spellings for the same thing, you know. The cost of proprietary environments to users is mostly not pecuniary.[1][2] It's that they suck, both on their own terms (but so does free software, otherwise we wouldn't need "emacs-devel" ;-), but more importantly, on the terms that *we* want to use software -- it does what we want, not vice versa, and mostly the only way to get software to do what we want is to write it ourselves. Footnotes: [1] There is a *social* cost of the Microsoft tax, for example, but for most users it's cheaper to buy a Windows box and reformat the HDD than it is to get a GNU system preinstalled (and forget about getting a GNU system from a vendor unless you ask for "Linux"; if you ask for "GNU/Linux", they'll say "never heard of that one, we offer Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux"!) Dell France apparently is currently quoting a price of 461 euros to give you the same box but with Ubuntu on it instead of Windows! Dell Japan, when pressed, will tell you that their own website is wrong, they don't actually offer pre-installed Linux[sic] any more. Windows is free-beer free for most users. Similarly, if you like Apple hardware, good luck getting a box without Mac OS X on it. [2] Proprietary applications can be horribly expensive, of course.