From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Ergonomics and neurology for interface designers Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:15:38 +0100 Message-ID: <87y4qz2wol.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <20141124083310.GA29913@thyrsus.com> <87zjbh3r98.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <20141124094929.GA32148@thyrsus.com> <87k32k51ka.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <20141124104616.GA1744@thyrsus.com> <87fvd8steg.fsf@gmx.de> <20141124130355.GA5432@thyrsus.com> <87bnnwqtfi.fsf@gmx.de> <20141125025054.GA20793@thyrsus.com> <877fyj4w45.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <20141125132210.GA10466@thyrsus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1416925051 31726 80.91.229.3 (25 Nov 2014 14:17:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 14:17:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Michael Albinus , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Eric S. Raymond" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 25 15:17:24 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@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 1XtGvj-0003rY-UQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:17:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57564 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGvj-0005C9-DW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:17:23 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52309) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGuz-0004lU-Nu for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:16:38 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGuy-0001ks-Ep for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:16:37 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:56528) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGuy-0001ko-By for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:16:36 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:35468 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtGux-0003KO-RJ; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:16:36 -0500 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B27E3E6652; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:15:38 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: <20141125132210.GA10466@thyrsus.com> (Eric S. Raymond's message of "Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:22:11 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:178237 Archived-At: "Eric S. Raymond" writes: > What humans cannot do is take sensory input, process, and then *react* > faster than spinal-reflex-arc time! Raskin's basic discovery was that > if you throw a mockup of your application start controls on the > display, you have a minimum of 0.17 seconds to finish initializing the > real controls before a human is capable of noticing and then trying to > do something. Well, but working with an editor in many ways is similar to typing on a typewriter: you don't usually wait for an action initiated by a keypress to complete before typing the next. There are various timers in Emacs, like the one showing incomplete command sequences or the one popping up mouse-over help, which consciously act with a delay in the expectation that a human will generally _not_ wait for a response by the computer before performing his next action. We actually had just recently a font-lock problem when scrolling with autorepeat rates of about 30 characters per second. You won't stop on the dime with such rates, but one still has a chance to catch what one is looking for. Things like multi-file incremental search may even run governed by the autorepeat rate. So I don't see that we have an absolute time threshold below which version control caused delays are irrelevant. -- David Kastrup