From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Lee Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: HOWTO: Cowtow to old farts Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <87pr07qjio.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <878w6vq7ew.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> <871vcmhq79.fsf@wivenhoe.ul.ie> <580d5f23-e251-483f-9752-7e77b1ca2fb7@40g2000pry.googlegroups.com> <2a7dc148-e2cc-4681-9d8c-ccd1140aa6d7@j36g2000prj.googlegroups.com> <089883ee-0a63-4cb4-a0ec-d2fe4e71cc03@y18g2000prn.googlegroups.com> <87wruco5yq.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87wrubfd8p.fsf@rapttech.com.au> <848w6ndwn0.fsf@cs.bham.ac.uk> <87ocfiec7r.fsf@unm.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291847064 24014 80.91.229.12 (8 Dec 2010 22:24:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 22:24:24 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 08 23:24:19 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQSQs-00069u-Qu for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:24:19 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:51112 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQSQm-0003Hz-Ok for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:24:12 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!d8g2000yqf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp Original-Lines: 190 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.180.85.8 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1277809785 30791 127.0.0.1 (29 Jun 2010 11:09:45 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:09:45 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: d8g2000yqf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=67.180.85.8; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.70 Safari/533.4, gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:179327 comp.emacs:100130 comp.lang.lisp:289745 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:76124 Archived-At: for those who may not know, Ilya Zakharevich is the guy to perl's regex engine, and author of cperl-mode. (8.1 k non-comment lines.), among tens of other perl modules. On Jun 29, 1:04=C2=A0am, Ilya Zakharevich wrote: > Re: HOWTO: Cowtow to old farts > ... > So, what do you think? I think you are joking. lol. am curious, what are your emacs configs? are they public somewhere? I didn't seem to see it in your perl home page. Thanks in advance. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84 On Jun 29, 1:04=C2=A0am, Ilya Zakharevich wrote: > On 2010-06-10, Evans Winner wrote: > > > In my opinion, the question should never be what new users > > of Emacs want. =C2=A0What new users want is an editor that is 5% > > better than notepad.exe because that is per-force the limit > > of their imagination. =C2=A0They generally do no know 1% of what > > Emacs can do, so are not in a position to intelligently > > decide what the defaults should be. =C2=A0They /should/ want to > > rely on experienced users for that, and they should be > > willing to spend the extra tiny bit of effort up-front to > > learn the reasoning behind it. =C2=A0If they aren't, then Emacs > > isn't for them. =C2=A0Let them go. > > Do not think you would find many people agreeing with you. =C2=A0Anyway: > > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D > > I applaud the stand of emacs developers in this thread: facing with > (extremely rude, unsubstantiated and, IMO, just plain stupid) attacks fro= m > a handful of self-righteous ... - Well, there is no need to stack epithet= s > here, if you read this, you probably have read the other 176 messages in > this thread, and had a possibility to see what the attackers consider to = be > "arguments". > > Anyway, I'm really proud of how the developers behaved in this situation = - > and how they understand their responsibilities in maintaining Emacs. =C2= =A0Myself, > I never used Emacs23, so cannot comment on the particular feature in ques= tion; > however, I cannot skip commenting on the general question of maintainance= of > Emacs defaults. =C2=A0(In 1/2 of what follows, there is going to be nothi= ng new > w.r.t. my other runts on this topic; skip to '----' if you cannot stand t= his > habit of mine.) > > For several decades, Emacs was practically unusable as a text editor AS > SHIPPED. =C2=A0Mostly, this was due to the old-guard developers having no= clue > in questions of UI design. =C2=A0The situation started to change about 10= years > ago (and now I expect I may be able to remove more than half of those > MEGABYTES of customizations I needed to make Emacs bearable for me - and = many > people using my customizations). =C2=A0I attribute it to inflow of new bl= ood the > camp of developers - and, as I said, I'm proud of them having great > contributions to this thread. > > Being "unusable-as-shipped" makes the question of preserving the old defa= ults > moot - the ONLY way ahead is to change the defaults as quick as possible. > This would make the `hidden wonders' of Emacs accessible to most of the u= sers. > > In my experience (and let me stress that this thread proves me wrong - se= e > below), Emacs users come in two large categories: the silent majority (>7= 0%, > in my estimates): the people who operate in n00b's mode (as in "how do I = edit > .emacs if it is not there?" [*] ;-): they know better use of their brains > than learning hundreds of keyboard command, learning how to program Emacs= , > and/or what is the name of configuration file of Emacs. > > =C2=A0(In my experience, most users also share another feature: most of t= hem are > =C2=A0 not interested in "typing as quick as they think". =C2=A0They are = more > =C2=A0 interested in following the "when you say what you think, think wh= at you > =C2=A0 say" maxim. =C2=A0Quality [and prudence] over speed... =C2=A0Few o= f they would be > =C2=A0 interested in "minimizing leaving home row keys".) > > The other category consists of us, old guard old farts, who consider it a= n > investement of time to read the NEWS file (at least when things break ;-)= , > who are visible on c.e.emacs, are not intimidated by running `F1 k' if th= ings > are not working as we expect, and for whom it is absolutely not a nuisanc= e > to insert a line into .emacs once in several years. > > Facing these two categories, the policy is obvious: the default should ca= ter > to those who won't be able to change them: newbies and eternal-newbies. > And for the old farts, there should be a clear pathway to navigate to HOW= TO > on undoing these changes. =C2=A0(And: this thread contained many suggesti= ons how > to make this navigation easier.) > > ---- =C2=A0And now the new part =C2=A0---- > > However, as this thread shows, there is another category which was > overlooked in my list (in my 15 years on this newsgroup, I do not recolle= ct > hearing from it before): "hapless" old farts - those who have a pretty go= od > idea how Emacs works, but do not know how to find their way out of their > pants^H^H^H^Hroblems. > > In this thread, their rudeness and obvious haplessness in the skill of > persuation hides an important consideration: it is POSSIBLE AND EASY to c= ater > to their needs as well. =C2=A0And if it is possible and easy, I think ti = is our > obligation to implement it. > > The solution may be as easy as having one function and one variable. =C2= =A0Use them > by replacing the defaults value by > > =C2=A0 (choose-by-version > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 emacs-principal-UI-freeze > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 nil > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 "23.2" t > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 "21.1" 'skip) > > with arguments being VERSION DEFAULT_VAL VERSION1 VALUE1 VERSION2 VALUE2 = .... > One may require VERSIONn's going in decreasing order, so nil, t, 'skip > would be the "current default", "previous default", "default before this"= etc. > > Even if there is only a handful of people who would actually want to free= ze > the "principal parts" of UI, such a trick may have a major role. =C2=A0Ju= st a > POSSIBILITY to freeze allows one much more freedom in CHANGING the defaul= ts. > And I expect that there may be many more useful ways to make defaults yet= more > user-friendly than they are now. > > So, what do you think? > Ilya > > [*] =C2=A0BTW: why not have an option "Edit configuration file" in the He= lp menu? > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0Or maybe it is already there? =C2=A0Not here, in 21.4= ... > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0One may even insert some meaningful header there if t= he file is > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0not present (sp?): > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0;;; This file is loaded by Emacs before= -this/after-that; > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0;;; it should contain Emacs-Lisp code c= ustomizing Emacs to your taste. > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0;;; To debug problems in this file, one= may skip loading it > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0;;; by giving option -q to emacs. =C2= =A0Alternatively, uncomment > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0;;; the following line (or give --debug= -init option to Emacs): > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0; (....) > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0;;; For further details, Choose XYZT fr= om Emacs menu, or type ....