From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "B. T. Raven" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Rapidly navigating buffers using search Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:25:55 -0500 Message-ID: References: <20100707064305.GF31621@groll.co.za> <20100707080139.GA18906@groll.co.za> <9dc07ed9-f6f1-4ac5-949a-5b97368cc32a@n19g2000prf.googlegroups.com> <87mxu22rbc.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291845808 18120 80.91.229.12 (8 Dec 2010 22:03:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 22:03:28 +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 23:03:24 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 1PQS6d-0003eG-Nb for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:03:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:45834 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQS6d-0001oA-32 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:03:23 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news2.google.com!npeer01.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.sysmatrix.net!news.sysmatrix.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:25:51 -0500 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp In-Reply-To: X-No-Archive: yes Original-Lines: 223 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.73.132.200 Original-X-Trace: sv3-cg5PgVilDFttlC+l2M3RncQ4+4falVp5LnPEVIvT2cZNmS+swfDAQx/v1zFluXpsHylDznRc8SFk3Ks!ni8yglk62pjdEMR2N839Z05DDcQdRCEdeeWge4KVU8VXMIkIpHmqmAuypR1cyXxjNe09qXCKloAr!eYvuD9GlwChuXz+Q2FAaZXs2VMxGRUo= Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@sysmatrix.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:179686 comp.emacs:100176 comp.lang.lisp:290178 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 X-Gmane-Expiry: 2010-12-22 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:76100 Archived-At: Xah Lee wrote: > 2010-07-10 > > On Jul 8, 3:36 am, David Kastrup wrote: >> I think the point was that the manual was not deficient concerning the >> information it provides, but in not making Xah Lee want to read it. >> >> In a way, it is a losing battle. People expect software to just work >> without reading manuals. 95% of all Word users, for example, create >> their documents by mostly visual manipulation of their text without >> having a clue about underlying structures like references, style sheets >> and so on. > > that's called progress. Maybe at the end of that "Road Ahead" there is the final Borgesian data base that contains all possible compositions. Then if you want to write a piece of expository prose arguing for the healthfulness of Twinkies, you can just pick the document from a menu. Voila! Magnum opus determined, dared, and done. > > vast majority of people who makes a living by coding, don't know any > assembly language. They use scripting langs such as php, python, perl, > and probably a significant of them don't even know a language proper, > e.g. they are html, css, dreamweaver etc “coders”. > > often there's complaint heard in the form of a sigh that sneer upon > the earlier generation, thinking they are uneducated and idiotic, but > quite the contrary. (slide rule vs electronic calculator, check vs > credit card use, hand writing vs type writer, type writer vs word > processor, ...) > >> The result is unmaintainable crap, but they would not know >> better. Word tries keeping up in this battle of computer illiteracy by >> doing things like enumerations, styles and so on "automagically", >> second-guessing the user, and the user tries second-guessing Word in >> order to get around that. > > yes, there's something to be said about how much time people spend in > learning the tools well for their profession. > > however, this must be differentiated from requiring users to > understand the implementation or the science behind things. Many tech > geekers unconsciously confuse this. > > Also, if you take a look from the other side of the coin, although > say, the prototypical “Microsoft using idiots” create incredibly > crappy documents, but overall, the technology make it possible for a > thousand fold more people contribute to this world in diverse fields. > In fact, many of these “idiots”, are professors and scientists and > engineers, who have not studied about computing. (in a similar way, a > typical hardcore tech geeker, who can drilldown on tech detail of C, C+ > +, Java, python, perl, lisp, tail recursion, monads, macros, pointers, > arrays, garbage collection, RFCs, etc and etc, but are a complete > idiot to fields of psychology, legal system, history, basics > economics... etc.) Some are, some aren't. From what I can informally grok, RMS for example, displays a significantly higher level of general culture than the average sociology or psychology Ph. D. > > personally, i'm a friend with many older generation mathematician > professors, who are run conferences or are chairman or presidents of > universities or large well known academic organizations. These > people's IQ, are above than i'd say 99% of hardcore emacs developers > in entire emacs history. These people, won't even be able to grok what > emacs is actually used for. It'd be hard pressed for them to > understand what a embeded scripting language in a application really > means. In fact, most won't even try. Here we can actually see a > phenomenon that might be interesting to tech geekers. In many > professional mathematicians's minds, programers are considered > inferior brainers, that programing field is something considered > trivial, a mere matter of some typing and dicing and fidgeting with > their theories. If Gauss or Goedel dared to sneer at someone like Donald Knuth they would be shown up as fools. > >> It is an escalation of mutual cluelessness. The more userfriendly a >> piece of software becomes, the more this becomes a problem for >> _competent_ people willing to learn about their tool. > > This train of thought, is prototypical of tech geek thinking. It comes > in a chantable form too that we often see these idiots put in their > sigs. The poster's point is that there is no hardwired repertoire of thinkables and that any design template that posits such state of affairs is doomed to become a strait-jacket. M$ is trying to please the lowest common denominator, same as the pornographers. > > It bears nothing to reality. It amounts to something equivalent to, > say, something as factual and meaningless as “the world has become > more dumb.”. > > It's incredible how this mentality tickles the tech geekers, as we can > see already a bunch following heartily praising this summery. The > thought that easy-to-use or GUI based software creates a viscous cycle > of more idiots, is a pleasing thought to tech geekers. > > Psychologists have studied this. In one example, different people > perceive different aspects of identical things. (e.g. flashing a > photo, and guys remember it as a photo of a beautiful chick, while > others don't remember there's a woman in it.) And or people will have > opposing conclusions given a identical article. (e.g. the leftist will > perceive a concrete evidence for leftist thoughts, while rightists see > concrete evidence of rightist thoughts (while the open source and or > “‘Free’ Software” camp see confirmation of the need for software > “freedom!”.)) People will defend to death their (irrational) beliefs. > The severe case is a form of self-deception, from beliefs in God to > politics to love relationships. > > It has to do with protecting one's own mental image and with that > generating the juices for to go on. This may seem all illogical... but > you know how there's many personality disorders and psychological > illness and the phenomenon of mental breakdown? A gist of it is that > human animals are just not logical machines, the working of the mind, > the constituents to go on living, is filled with seemingly illogical > complications. > > (personally, i have struggled with a quest to become a machine-like > being, e.g. like those of mister Data or Spock in the StarTrek scifi. > Been fret with this for some 20 years. Part of it is inborn > personality, a inclination towards what's called a schizoid > personality, and part of it is a quest to have the most powerful, > logical, mind without emotion. It'd be a booklet to write about my > experiences in this. (most tech geekers will probably think if it can > done then wow that'd be great... (it's not what you think!)) (and > besides a personal tale, there's also many scientific aspect of this. > On the computer science side: can machines think? why yes or no? when > circuits becomes sufficiently complex, will it develop emotion? > Emergent phenomenon, complexity theories, cellular automata... and on > the psychology/neuro-science side: is it possible for a human animal > be totally emotionless? (note that many Hollywood movies depict such > (fascinating!) character to various degrees.)) ) This sounds like a bad attack of ADD. What's fascinating about Keanu Reeves? Lieutenant Ripley is fascinating; Bishop is not. > > >> At least Emacs is >> at its heart and in most of its modes a WYSIWYG system with regard to >> the actual file contents: regardless of the crap people do, what ends up >> on disk is that what they see on their screen. >> >> I have no idea what to do to make people lean towards looking at the >> documentation. Emacs has a help menu, and those also point to tutorials >> explaining the basics in most local languages. >> >> But people look at documentation mostly when they run into problems they >> can't deal with on their own. And the more userfriendly Emacs becomes, >> and the better its menus and interactive helps become, the less people >> become inclined to bother looking for help. > > > been writing already long... so i'll cut short here. All of the above > is actually not exactly revalent here. We can go on philosophizing > about whether people are getting more dumb or whatnot... Boris Sidis, (Bill's father), a shrewd psychologist, thought, with good reason, that IQ testing was dumb. I do, however, have solid evidence that the X generation is more ahistorical than the Boomers, who, in turn, tend to live in the moment. > > but the issue here is the quality of emacs's documentation. A > documentation, has a quality. This quality can be measured. It can be > measure in many ways, depending on your purpose. e.g. how good is the > use of the english language in coveying information? how easy is it > for readers to understand? how impeccable is the style with respect to > logicians? How well is the grammar? How well are the over-all > structure organized? will people LIKE the manual? ... so many and so > many. How good (adjective) is the grammar? The nub of the matter here is the question of who will evaluate the measurer. > > but in short, here's one thing to consider: i think emacs manual is > well written (generally speaking), but it is largely written in the > 1980s. The bulk of it, the organization, the style of what things are > presented, the verbosity of the words to convey a idea, ... are all > geared in the computer of a era 2 decades old. There are things more than two millennia old whose value just keeps growing year by year. Since the philosophy and structure of the Emacs documentation was so well thought out way back then, the texts just have to be tweaked here and there to keep up with the evolution of the program. > > i wrote something about this aspect, it can be seen here: > > • Problems of Emacs's Manual > http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_manual_problem.html > > i'll need to clean it up... Or maybe even entirely rethink your position. "Cleaning" it up, as you say, might just further implicate you in the "viscous" cycle. > > for a glimpse of the era of computing that emacs's manual was in, see: > > • GNU Emacs and Xemacs Schism, by Ben Wing > http://xahlee.org/emacs/gnu_emacs_xemacs_schism_Ben_Wing.html > > • Keyboard Hardware's Influence on Keyboard Shortcut Design > http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboard_hardware_and_key_choices.html > > Xah > ∑ http://xahlee.org/ > > ☄ Ed