From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Evans Winner Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: line-move-visual Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:48:08 -0600 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <87ocfiec7r.fsf@unm.edu> References: <87pr07qjio.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <878w6vq7ew.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <871vcmhq79.fsf@wivenhoe.ul.ie> <580d5f23-e251-483f-9752-7e77b1ca2fb7@40g2000pry.googlegroups.com> <2a7dc148-e2cc-4681-9d8c-ccd1140aa6d7@j36g2000prj.googlegroups.com> <089883ee-0a63-4cb4-a0ec-d2fe4e71cc03@y18g2000prn.googlegroups.com> <87wruco5yq.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87wrubfd8p.fsf@rapttech.com.au> <848w6ndwn0.fsf@cs.bham.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291951834 28587 80.91.229.12 (10 Dec 2010 03:30:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:30:34 +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 Dec 10 04:30:30 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@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 1PQtge-0006I4-Dm for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:30:30 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:45842 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQtgc-0007EP-Ea for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:30:22 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp Original-Lines: 31 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 4xmhsRr5Aeb6D0t2Thq8sQ.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:mTPr1/Otki2DgoF7ukAmZ3LgglQ= User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:178817 comp.emacs:99985 comp.lang.lisp:288921 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:23:47 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:77275 Archived-At: In my opinion, the question should never be what new users of Emacs want. What new users want is an editor that is 5% better than notepad.exe because that is per-force the limit of their imagination. They generally do no know 1% of what Emacs can do, so are not in a position to intelligently decide what the defaults should be. They /should/ want to rely on experienced users for that, and they should be willing to spend the extra tiny bit of effort up-front to learn the reasoning behind it. If they aren't, then Emacs isn't for them. Let them go. Changing defaults to whatever makes the least friction for those who switch to Emacs is not a service to new users; the principle is that people tend to stick with what they learn first, so dumbed-down defaults produces dumbed-down users, who will, after a few months or years, show up on emacs-devel demanding even more dumbed-down defaults, because that would make it even easier for the next generation of Microsoft/IBM/CUA refugees. It sometimes surprises me to find that even some experienced users of Emacs don't use and even sometimes don't know how to use keyboard macros. The name Emacs does, after all, come from the phrase "Editor MACroS." It is a fundamental part of the user experience. The question with regards to new users and line-move-visual is whether the slight savings in initial cognitive friction comes and the price of making it more difficult for new users to learn to create and use typical line-at-a-time-type keyboard macros. I don't claim to know the answer to this particular question, but I think the principle above is the right one to consider in this kind of case.