From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Uday S Reddy Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs learning curve Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:54:46 +0100 Message-ID: References: <4C3B6A8A.80105@gmx.de> <87wrt0e81n.fsf@telefonica.net> <87k4p0dyjz.fsf@telefonica.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1279040123 32149 80.91.229.12 (13 Jul 2010 16:55:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:55:23 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 13 18:55:20 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@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 1OYilM-00042F-0T for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:55:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:44412 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYilL-0008Ou-4T for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:55:19 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=52657 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYilB-0008Oo-IJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:55:13 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYil9-0003ai-UU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:55:09 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:44709) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYil9-0003aU-KZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:55:07 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYil5-0003qk-70 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:55:03 +0200 Original-Received: from cpc10-harb6-0-0-cust112.perr.cable.virginmedia.com ([92.232.137.113]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:55:03 +0200 Original-Received: from u.s.reddy by cpc10-harb6-0-0-cust112.perr.cable.virginmedia.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:55:03 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 51 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: cpc10-harb6-0-0-cust112.perr.cable.virginmedia.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Thunderbird/3.1 In-Reply-To: <87k4p0dyjz.fsf@telefonica.net> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:127198 Archived-At: On 7/13/2010 1:18 AM, Óscar Fuentes wrote: > I'm glad you think like this. I have the impression that some prominent > hackers here think that it is a good thing and a show of distinction to > produce systems that require reading a manual and do quite a bit of > tinkering before usage. This is a symptom of the hacker's limitations, > of course. He implicitly acknowledges that designing the system on a way > that does not require that burden from the user was too much for him > (there is no derogatory intention towards any Emacs hacker here) I think we are a bit past that stage in the Emacs world. [A historical throwback: when Emacs started, the reigning champion of the computing world was Unix. To use Unix, not only did you have to read its manuals and memorize them as much as you could, but also the manuals were ugly and boring. In contrast, the Emacs manual was readable and insightful and you didn't have to memorize more than what you had to. The manual was at your finger tips whenever you wanted to look up something. It was a great advance over the extant practice.] The present Emacs allows you to do quite a bit without reading a manual. But unless you read the manual, you won't have the depth of understanding necessary to solve problems or to have a good mental model of what is actually happening. This is true not only of Emacs, but all other tools that are supposedly famous for being grandmother-friendly, i.e., Microsoft/Apple/Mozilla etc. A few months ago, we had some users trying to switch from Thunderbird to VM. The biggest problem they had was that, when they deleted messages in Thunderbird they apparently disappeared. But when they viewed the same folders in VM, all those deleted messages came back! Well, they had a slash through them in the summary display but they were still there. It took me some 10 minutes of digging through the Thunderbird manuals (the so-called "Knowledge Base") to find out that: (a) Thunderbird doesn't delete messages when you delete them. It does a separate expunge either automatically or when you ask it to. (b) The so-called "Trash" folder isn't actually recycle bin. So, you couldn't undelete messages by just going to it. In fact, the Thunderbird knowledge base offered the rather innovative method of logging into the same IMAP account via a webmail system (imagine!) in order to undelete the messages that you might have accidentally deleted in Thunderbird. Thus, in 10 minutes, I had more insight into what Thunderbird was doing than these habituated users that might have used it for years. Literacy is a great advance for humanity, not because it makes us feel sophisticated, but because it is efficient for acquiring knowledge. Cheers, Uday