From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Gregory Heytings via "Emacs development discussions." Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: How to make Emacs popular again. Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2020 08:58:38 +0000 Message-ID: References: <20200926163008.GS1349@protected.rcdrun.com> Reply-To: Gregory Heytings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35747"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Alpine 2.22 (NEB 394 2020-01-19) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Bob Newell Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Oct 07 10:59:35 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kQ5IM-0009DK-Vg for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 07 Oct 2020 10:59:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:48168 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kQ5IM-0006k6-2d for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 07 Oct 2020 04:59:34 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:53722) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kQ5Hf-0006FN-FL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 07 Oct 2020 04:58:51 -0400 Original-Received: from mx.sdf.org ([205.166.94.24]:53247) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kQ5Hc-0004UL-J0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 07 Oct 2020 04:58:51 -0400 Original-Received: from sdf.org (IDENT:ghe@otaku.sdf.org [205.166.94.8]) by mx.sdf.org (8.15.2/8.14.5) with ESMTPS id 0978wge7003577 (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256 bits) verified NO); Wed, 7 Oct 2020 08:58:42 GMT Original-Received: (from ghe@localhost) by sdf.org (8.15.2/8.12.8/Submit) id 0978wgqx023388; Wed, 7 Oct 2020 08:58:42 GMT In-Reply-To: Received-SPF: pass client-ip=205.166.94.24; envelope-from=ghe@sdf.org; helo=mx.sdf.org X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: First seen = 2020/10/07 04:58:46 X-ACL-Warn: Detected OS = ??? X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:257185 Archived-At: > > It does raise the question: how did the current Emacs users learn Emacs? > I can't speak for anyone else but I don't know that my own experiences > are in any way unique. > Thank you for this interesting question. I can't speak for anyone else either, but FWIW here is what happend for me. I just digged in my digital archives to find the first traces of my use of Emacs. Apparently the oldest version of Emacs I used was 19.34. In the oldest copies of the .emacs file I used at that time, I see mainly two things: 1. settings to customize Emacs' visual appearance: default-frame-alist: font, cursor-color, background-color, vertical-scroll-bars nil icon-title-format and frame-title-format: I was using (list " Emacs - " '(-1 . "%s")), apparently to have a visual indication that gnuserv was running mode-line-format: in particular, I removed the "L" before the line number and added columns with %c, I replaced the default "%14b" with "%b", and I displayed time with (setq display-time-24hr-format t) or (setq display-time-format ...) and (display-time) font-lock-mode: (global-font-lock-mode t), (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t), (setq font-lock-maximum-size nil), and a number of customized font-lock faces menu-bar: apparently I sometimes (i.e., not always) disabled the menu bar with (menu-bar-mode nil) 2. settings to customize Emacs' keyboard bindings: (pc-selection-mode) (CUA-mode t) (global-set-key [home] 'beginning-of-line) (global-set-key [end] 'end-of-line) (global-set-key [C-home] 'beginning-of-buffer) (global-set-key [C-end] 'end-of-buffer) I vaguely remember that I stopped using CUA-mode after a year or two. So it seems that, for me at that time as for newcomers today, the visual appearance and keyboard settings were the main/only thing I was interested in. (I believe there is, however, an important difference between twenty years ago and now: at that time it would have been as difficult to do such customizations with other text editors as it was for Emacs (and with a number of these other editors it would simply not have been possible to do such customizations), so it was okay to spend some time on this. Nowadays with other text editors these customizations are the first thing you are asked to do, and you can do them with a few mouse clicks. Which explains, I think, that the average user expectation is very different now than it was twenty years ago.) > > I learned first from the tutorial, then from some of the manuals, then > by doing and experimenting and reading more of the manuals, and trial > and error. > I remember that I tried to follow the tutorial, and that I never had the patience to do so, because (IIRC) it spends too much time on things that are (or at least appear) easy (moving around, which you can do with arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, ...). Most of what I learned later was with C-h: C-h k, C-h l, C-h m, C-h f, C-h v, C-h w. I also read parts of the manual (with Info) but found it less useful than the built-in documentation. And, of course, I learned a lot by trial and error. > > Things are, in fact, very much easier now than when I started with Emacs > decades ago. Today, there is a wealth of on-line information, with > tutorials, how-tos, discussions, code samples, and help readily > available to anyone who asks politely. > Again I can't speak for you or anyone else, but I also remember (and my digital archives confirm) that twenty years ago there was a "dotemacs" website, which is I believe now at https://dotemacs.de , in which I found many example configuration files, with many simple defuns.