Re: "Why is emacs so square?"

[ndame <ndame@protonmail.com>]

>
> > Is there such a thing? Or does learning emacs mostly pay off
> > for the advanced user? I can't think of a feature right know where
> > emacs shines for the casual user.
>
> Org mode, magit, helm comes to my mind.


Orgmode is included, but helm and magit are in melpa. Emacs should feature
packages which are accessible for the new user without tinkering. Though,
if the newbie.el which can setup a beginner friendly environment if emacs
is started without config is allowed to add melpa to the package list and
install helm/magit automatically then it's ok, because then it is instantly
available  for the new user.

BTW, helm. Maybe the veterans don't recognize it, but the default emacs completion
is extremely clunky, especially if one comes from other modern tools.

A user accustomed to modern tools expects something like this:

https://resources.jetbrains.com/help/img/idea/2020.1/find_action_dialog.png

A vertical list which is instantly filtered as you type.

Compared to this the default completion is hoplessly old fashioned with its
multicolumn text display and having to press for TAB for the results.

Icomplete is a step in the right direction. The above mentioned newbie.el
should set it up instead of the default completion.

Though, it's a single line displaying completions, a vertical display
could be better, especially if the entries are longer.

And someone did it already:

https://github.com/oantolin/icomplete-vertical

Icomplete-vertical should be adopted into the core as an option and this
is how completion should be set up for newbies.

It's still not as good looking as the one on my first link, but it's
almost there. It's vertical, it gives you instant results, so it's much
closer to completion provided by modern tools (Idea, VsCode, etc.) than
the default one.