Re: Adding a "misconceptions about Emacs" FAQ on the website

[Robert Weiner <rsw@gnu.org>]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 10:34 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>> The top three I get are, from least to most frequent:
>>
>> * I'd love to use Emacs, but (I hear) it's very slow to start

Ask them how long their brain takes to start up and how often they
shut it down and restart it.  Tell them Emacs is like that.
If they don't understand the parallel, then they may never be a good
user candidate  :-)

>> * The keybindings are scary

Maybe because there are many of them, but similarly to the first point
above, people who do not care for logically arranged structures that
provide powerful capabilities will not be good candidates for usage.
Those who do appreciate such things can easily be convinced with a bit
of investigation.  Emacs has the most logical and repeated use of key
bindings of virtually any program in use today.

>>   (Answers include CUA-mode and viper/evil)

Yes, you can emulate pretty much anything they might be comfortable
with already.

>>
>> * I could learn Emacs, but vi(m) is more useful because it's available everywhere
>>   (Answer is Tramp, which I've found people to be very impressed by)

Having one location with pre-built, easily one click downloadable and
installable Emacs packages for all major platforms certainly would
help in such regard.

>>
>> Ideally, if people like the idea of an FAQ, we could discuss top items to include; I'm not too interested in starting a thread about Emacs vs. the world.

Emacs is for people who want an `environment' that continues to
empower them across time.  vi and similar tools are for people who
want point tools that augment another environment that they use all
the time.

Bob