From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: C-d deleting region considered harmful Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:58:41 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87eicrx1ls.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <83lj6zz9o0.fsf@gnu.org> <87bp7setll.fsf@altern.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1285203535 20901 80.91.229.12 (23 Sep 2010 00:58:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:58:55 +0000 (UTC) Cc: lennart.borgman@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, bzg@altern.org, eliz@gnu.org, drew.adams@oracle.com To: Miles Bader Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 23 02:58:53 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@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 1Oya9E-00061y-55 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:58:52 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:51452 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Oya9D-0001zM-Dw for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:58:51 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=57950 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Oya98-0001zH-2J for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:58:46 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Oya97-0005am-3G for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:58:45 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:41031) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Oya97-0005ai-1m for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:58:45 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Oya93-0005yS-Uq; Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:58:41 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Miles Bader on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:11:48 +0900) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:130647 Archived-At: [I seem to recall you making the point in the past that the polls are not so much a "vote" as a way to solicit reasoned arguments from a somewhat wider group than the regular developers.] Yes, indeed. It seems like the usefulness of the results would depend very much on the nature of the question -- e.g., the results might be a lot better when you want the feedback of experienced long-time Emacs users (and it's OK for the results to be heavily biased in that direction), than when you want the opinion of the "mythical newbie" or even the average Emacs user. What we find out from polls is whether significant groups of people find a certain feature useful, and if so _why_ they do. That enables us to find changes that won't cause problems for them and avoid changes that will. If we just speculate about this, we might be very wrong.