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: emacs stackexchange beta site Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 17:49:24 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <87zjdtotx7.fsf@debian.uxu> References: <874mw5q15w.fsf@debian.uxu> <87a95wy73q.fsf@debian.uxu> <8761gkdto0.fsf@panda.goosenet.in> <877g0zcufb.fsf@debian.uxu> <8761gibwwy.fsf@panda.goosenet.in> <87a95utjwi.fsf@debian.uxu> <87y4tdxpbi.fsf@panda.goosenet.in> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1411314628 20553 80.91.229.3 (21 Sep 2014 15:50:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 15:50:28 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 21 17:50:21 2014 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 1XVjP1-0005K7-42 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 21 Sep 2014 17:50:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39902 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XVjP0-0001fA-Jq for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 21 Sep 2014 11:50:18 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!newsfeed.esat.net!zen.net.uk!dedekind.zen.co.uk!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 88 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: iK2xnjqmpIuLack8wOFLvw.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:vC+2euyaOBkQUHLM45t85BxxGJM= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:207825 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:100099 Archived-At: Udyant Wig writes: > I should have mentioned this beforehand and included > other entities along with Google. Would the fact that > many intelligence agencies were monitoring fora > affect your perspective? I expect them to do that. This is all public material and that is in part the purpose. We communicate within this guild of sorcerers, but if anyone Google our discussion to help them with a particular problem (they might find our material just as well as a SX site question) that is just as well. Or if they just get curious what we are doing and start thinking/acting in new ways in part because of it. This sounds a bit pompous but I know such things happen every day. In general, I take a principled approach: if I possess some sensitive material, I don't put it anywhere where anyone can see it, ever. If the material isn't sensitive, I put it somewhere public. Then, if every single human being on the planet read it, I wouldn't have a problem with that. And as Pascal said (sort of), it is a difference between the material (text) in a newsgroup, and the number-crunching machines that do work on the posters, searchers, i.e. the humans and their habits. But I admit I don't have a huge problem with that, actually. It is just a positive side effect from using great software that you yourself control instead of Hotmail, Gmail, etc. - it is more efficient, more creative (fun), more pleasant, but also, correct, you don't play their game. At least not (by far) as much as they like you to. >> The GUI or UI shouldn't matter. A CLI, or otherwise >> text-only, is superior to just about any GUI, I >> believe. But that shouldn't matter. The material >> should just be there, free - if you want to access >> it through a GUI I don't have any problem with that, >> as long as I can access the same material not using >> a GUI. Why fight about it? > > As I said, the future is the GUI, or so it seems. > This is to say that very often the primary and only > interface available would be the GUI without > alternatives. The future is not exactly the GUIs. The future is a separation between the data and the GUIs. This is already the case in a lot of places. We already mentioned mails (Gnus = not GUI, Thunderbird = GUI - still compatible), and Usenet (Gnus vs. web interfaces à la Google Groups), but also bash, zsh, etc. that can fully replace work in the Linux and Unix desktops (GNOME, KDE, etc. - GNOME and KDE can absolutely not replace bash and zsh, though they are hosted, of course), in programming (mouse-free Emacs vs. the MS and Apple IDE with tons of buttons and menus everywhere), and so on. The GUIs came big with the Xerox and Apple and Microsoft and IBM PC revolution, but many, many programmers and advanced computer users solely use the shell. The SX sites are a good example: how many questions are of the nature "how do I do X from bash?", "do that and that from the command line", etc. There are also many books with that approach, on that I can recommend is: @Book{sobell, author = {Mark Sobell}, title = {A Practical Guide to Linux}, publisher = {Prentice Hall}, edition = {3rd edition}, year = 2013, ISBN = {0-13-308504-X}} So I think GUI vs. CLI will look much the same in the future. The bigger challenge is the touchscreen interfaces that are meant for just consuming information (not being creative) that appear on pads and phones. Those are much worse than GUIs and really make zombies out of people. -- underground experts united