From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jeremiah Dodds Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: "like other editors" [was: Re: Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete] Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 11:22:16 -0500 Message-ID: References: <87litcvtu2.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <20111003093334.0bf5d988@kuru.homelinux.net> <4E89B613.9060305@mousecar.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1317713536 14319 80.91.229.12 (4 Oct 2011 07:32:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 07:32:16 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, emacs-delete-poll@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 04 09:32:10 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RAzU2-0001oI-Aa for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:32:10 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54694 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAzTy-0006CI-Dn for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:32:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:34097) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAlHa-0002J6-1E for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:22:23 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAlHY-0000Zs-Mq for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:22:21 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-ey0-f169.google.com ([209.85.215.169]:39076) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RAlHW-0000Zc-N8; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:22:19 -0400 Original-Received: by eye13 with SMTP id 13so3410005eye.0 for ; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:22:16 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=iwQbOx4odz+C+bTcOiP9gwp9HE3HNWIwDWlZSwSGZak=; b=UWD2gS7Wir0ZyNzHuTF3x5mE4ZSuoXMXW4w7LX8DzVNKtyS6wlyGYfguv6G9mPEsdw ZWXhSlSmgUK5pdDeJrpIojIQCI9fFYm25A1U2t3BHguuqrcmqv2/WfNxqHnmzy3EHaf2 2EwvQL9Wh0dQMC+AybhVh0RtSRYVDXwBg+ySk= Original-Received: by 10.223.18.203 with SMTP id x11mr179149faa.4.1317658936614; Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:22:16 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.223.14.6 with HTTP; Mon, 3 Oct 2011 09:22:16 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4E89B613.9060305@mousecar.com> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.215.169 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:32:02 -0400 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:82436 Archived-At: Let me preface by saying that I don't really care very much about the behavior of [DEL] here, but I do care about people trying to call out arguments as invalid with hogwash. On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 8:18 AM, ken wrote: >> [Making this change] brings default Emacs behaviour close >> to other modern text editors. .... > > This is an invalid argument, more an appeal to fashion than an appeal to > reason. =A0When switching from one application to another, we shouldn't e= xpect > the new one to behave just like the former one. =A0They are different pie= ces > of software, after all. =A0When you start using different software, you s= hould > expect that it will operate differently. =A0You should expect that you'll= have > to learn new things. > Assumptions: Other "modern text editors" behavior was not decided upon via reason. All pieces of software are an island. I don't disagree that people should expect to learn new things, but I'm als= o not ignorant of patterns of behavior in categories of software, and how that ca= n influence a user's ability to learn things quickly as well as how that can affect adoption. Perhaps if you had some evidence that the behavior of [DEL] in other modern editors was pretty much a big unfortunate trend, this argument would hold. If I had to guess though, I would guess that at least one of the editors out there with the behavior have some closer to empirical data as to why they chose that behavior. > Secondly, there are places in the world where people haven't ever used > Windows; instead, their first and only experience with computers is with > Linux. =A0What sense can it make to them that emacs' behavior is changed > simply to mimic some other editor they've never seen or used? > Assumptions: The Emacs community gives a crap about emacs making sense ;) In these places in the world, the only editor available is emacs. >From the discussion, it seems more likely that they'd say something like "Oh, well it looks like emacs does the same thing as these other editors no= w". Then again, I wouldn't know. Maybe some of them are on the list, and would like to say whether or not they'd be totally befuddled if the behavior of [= DEL] changed? > I think that over the long term it will trend upwards that more people's > first and only computer experience will be with FOSS. =A0So thinking ahea= d to > those times, why should we alter the default behavior of Emacs to conform= to > a legacy editor? > This is just kinda sidestepping the argument. A whoooole lot of Emacs behavior is the way it is because it was written be= fore there were a whole lot of text editors around. Emacs has a lot of "legacy" behavior and terminology. If, in the future, the majority of text editors decided that a different behavior for [DEL] was better, presumably through some sort of study, then at that time we might want to consider modifying the behavior of [DEL] again. Oh no! "Correct behavior" and "usability" and all that are not things that are set in stone, they're more like really slow rivers mixed with a clusterfuck of culture. Now, whether or not the emacs community cares too much about that is another matter .... but then again, users who like and use emacs enough *to* care about keeping the current behavior are probably knowledgeable enough to know how to configure emacs to keep it... > Fourth, if we apply your argument to every difference between Emacs and > (e.g.) Word, then we end up with Emacs behaving just like Word, and there > being no difference between Emacs and Word. =A0Then we might as well just= use > Word. :/ > This is ridiculous. If all differences could be considered equal, maybe it wouldn't be. > Fifth, if we change emacs to comport with Word, and if in future Word > changes the way it handles highlighted text to way emacs does now, should > emacs then change back again, just to (again) follow the way Word works? > Well, is the emacs community making the change to follow *one* editor, or to follow a trend in behavior across multiple editors? If the latter has occured, it might be worth the consideration of the community. > Finally, as said at the top, the argument to follow "other modern editors= " > is nothing more than an appeal to fashion. =A0And fashion is very subject= ive > and capricious. =A0We should no more change emacs simply to comport with = some > other, even (currently) more popular software than you and I and all the > other guys on this list should start dressing ourselves like the cool dud= es > on whatever soap opera is the most popular these days. > This is sort of pointless. AFAICT, keeping the behavior isn't any less an "appeal to fashion", it's just an appeal to the current emacs fashion, other than in the parts of the thread that were actually bringing up *reasons* for keeping it around or changing it that weren't just emotional claptrap. If the change is *entirely* superficial, then what's going on is a bunch of bikeshedding, and this whole discussion should be tossed into the firey inferno. > Let's just talk about what makes sense. Seriously.