Re: line-move-visual

[Mark Crispin <mrc@panda.com>]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010, Uday S Reddy posted:
> By community ownership, I only mean that all the people that have a stake in 
> the system have a voice in the matter and we all feel ownership of the 
> system.  When the community is divided, as seems to be the case on this 
> issue, the developers have to make a decision and move on.

The problem is that nobody ever asked the existing users whether or not 
they wanted this global change foisted upon them.  Rather, it was done 
unilaterally, and the individuals responsible are saying "See!  Some 
people like it!  It was a good change."

This sort of thing happened in the past as well.  The difference was that 
there was accountability in the past that is absent today.

> In my humble opinion, it is 
> easy to argue that the current default was ill-chosen.  But it is not so easy 
> to argue that it should be changed.  If we change it, then we face all the 
> same issues all over again affecting the other users that are depending on 
> the current default.  So, it seems best to leave things as they are and make 
> a note of all the lessons learned.

I agree that we are probably screwed, and royally so.

I have a new task on my list: replace emacs in the procedures for my 
target audience since emacs is no longer suitable for that purpose.  I 
simply can not tell these users "make sure that you set line-move-visual 
to nil"; they would have no clue what that means.  More likely than not, I 
will end up being obliged to write a program for the task; and there will 
be one less way those users will be exposed to emacs.

One of the advantages of the "software tools" mindset of the past was that 
you did not have to write a program for every task.  Instead, you could 
leverage the existing tools.  That falls apart when those tools are 
corrupted so that they no longer can be relied upon to produce predictable 
results.

>> But even the laymen become power-corrupted.
> I think that is a bit of an exaggeration.  They have a responsibility to bear 
> and sometimes they get carried away.

Every young programmer wants to put his own mark on things.  The problem 
is that these changes are frequently ill-considered and sometimes have bad 
consequences.

>> Since user interface surprise is a barrier to upgrade, they make sure there 
>> aren't any such surprises.
> Yes, that point is well-made.  But, the same argument now suggests that the 
> default should not be changed yet again.

Yup.  We're probably screwed.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.