From: "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com>
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:41:57 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <Ks6dnQ5K7-pksjbWnZ2dnUVZ8oidnZ2d@posted.visi> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87mxxweqr6.fsf@rapttech.com.au>
Dear friends, no one is immune from criticism, but I've noted with
amusement how the discussion is wandering astray with misreading and
misunderstanding. Did I say "that emacs lacked documentation"? No. Has
"no one suggested that you read the source code"? Someone did. Are the
important manuals all up to date? Obviously not. Is the documentation
complete? Clearly, no. Is there lots of useful stuff there? Sure. Is it
readily usable? For some people, for some purposes.
But if determined, competent, insightful people sat down to design
documentation that would be complete, most usable, and most helpful over a
range of users, the current emacs documentation isn't what they'd come up
with. Far from it. Ask any talented documentation professional.
Maybe you're motivated to track down what I've done in free software, and
what documentation I've created. But I can't do it all. I appreciate the
work other determined people put in on emacs (and other free software) and
documentation, but it's not immune to criticism and suggestion. Otherwise
how will we improve things?
We're colleagues here, and we're all in the same bus. Let's not browbeat
one another, and let's not deceive ourselves.
emacs is The One True Editor. It's a work of genius, and I've written
about why that is. But I wish it had better documentation.
djc
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2010-03-25 9:41 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 55+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2010-03-21 19:02 Failing to see the allure of Emacs Daniel
2010-03-21 20:22 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-21 20:47 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-21 21:00 ` akaiser
2010-03-21 21:26 ` Daniel
2010-03-21 22:16 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-22 4:05 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-03-21 22:21 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-23 17:22 ` akaiser
2010-03-23 17:52 ` Jeff Clough
2010-03-23 19:10 ` akaiser
2010-03-23 19:32 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-03-23 23:00 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-24 21:40 ` Tim X
2010-03-24 22:00 ` akaiser
2010-03-25 0:28 ` Jason Rumney
2010-03-25 1:03 ` Jay Belanger
2010-03-25 1:27 ` despen
2010-03-25 8:42 ` Tim X
2010-03-25 9:19 ` akaiser
2010-03-25 10:01 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-25 10:09 ` akaiser
2010-03-27 20:59 ` Giorgos Keramidas
2010-04-07 5:36 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-25 9:41 ` akaiser [this message]
2010-03-25 12:17 ` Tim Landscheidt
2010-03-25 12:24 ` akaiser
2010-05-04 19:03 ` Lennart Borgman
[not found] ` <mailman.28.1272999835.29092.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2010-05-05 7:15 ` David Kastrup
2010-05-05 20:40 ` Stefan Monnier
2010-03-25 12:45 ` Jay Belanger
2010-03-25 18:31 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-03-25 14:07 ` Ted Zlatanov
2010-03-25 14:49 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-26 4:14 ` Galen Boyer
2010-05-05 17:27 ` Joel J. Adamson
2010-03-21 21:02 ` Jeff Clough
2010-03-21 22:09 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-21 22:35 ` B. T. Raven
2010-03-21 22:45 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-22 0:21 ` Jeff Clough
2010-03-22 4:45 ` B. T. Raven
2010-05-22 2:38 ` Joseph Brenner
2010-03-21 22:58 ` John Bokma
2010-04-20 13:04 ` Jim Diamond
2010-04-20 17:15 ` Andreas Politz
2010-04-20 17:34 ` Jeff Clough
2010-04-21 14:26 ` Jim Diamond
2010-04-20 17:36 ` Glenn Morris
2010-04-21 14:31 ` Jim Diamond
2010-04-21 18:23 ` Stefan Monnier
2010-04-22 15:27 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-04-20 22:37 ` Tim X
2010-03-21 22:41 ` despen
2010-03-22 11:59 ` Stefan Kamphausen
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