RE: [External] : Re: [PATCH] Package Installation in Tutorial

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> No need to differentiate and point out different opinions in the
> community, it's a good thing. I wouldn't want to stifle opinions,
> especially from people like Drew, whose work and commitment speaks for
> themselves.
> 
> It's just I never thought about data-driven development around here.
> Everyone has an agenda, working on features they care about; at least
> discussions are conducted where people convince the maintainers in the
> necessity of the change, but almost never by using data/polls. I
> remember the Emacs survey of 2020; it was a private initiative (not FSF)
> with almost no impact on discussions here; at least that was my
> impression.
> 
> I see the value of conservatism in the survival of Emacs up to this
> point. Obviously Emacs can grow in a proactive manner as well, in
> addition to a reactive manner of fixing things enough people complained
> about, per the criteria mentioned previously.

FWIW, I agree with pretty much everything Daniel
has said, both here and in previous messages in
this thread, and with the way he's presented and
argued for his proposal.

He's not only tried to offer reasons, but he's
also appreciated questions and doubts about it,
instead of being defensive.  He's clearly open
and positive.

Very glad he's helping with Emacs.  And I hope
he doesn't get burned out by perceived hostility
or negativity.

Whether this particular thing gets added to the
basic tutorial or not, there's little doubt that
such help, in one form or another, could benefit
some new users (and some old users, including me,
FWIW).
___

The number of people who've provided extremely
valuable help, including outstanding features,
to the Emacs community, and who've given up
trying (or never bothered to try) to participate
in direct development of vanilla Emacs, is not
insignificant.

That is what it is.  Those folks haven't stopped
contributing to Emacs, in their own ways, and
they clearly love it.
___

[And no, I'm not talking about myself there.  I
do still participate directly (emacs-devel, bug
reports, help-gnu-emacs). I guess I can stand the
heat, or maybe I'm a glutton for punishment ;-).]