From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tom Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs learning curve Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:34:02 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <4C3B6A8A.80105@gmx.de> <87wrt0e81n.fsf@telefonica.net> <62E9699C07054418AB66F9C5FCB54E5C@us.oracle.com> <87sk3oe3la.fsf@telefonica.net> <1154D96E7D2F401D849266F359E44BB9@us.oracle.com> <87ocecdzou.fsf@telefonica.net> <87hbk4i1m4.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87bpacdpwl.fsf@telefonica.net> 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 1279002866 26376 80.91.229.12 (13 Jul 2010 06:34:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:34:26 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 13 08:34:24 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 1OYZ4S-0005Dw-8S for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:34:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:58660 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYZ4R-0007vW-Ho for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:34:23 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=48137 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYZ4J-0007rT-D7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:34:16 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYZ4I-0001ck-4i for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:34:15 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:57614) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYZ4H-0001cY-Q2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:34:14 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYZ4E-00058T-3h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:34:10 +0200 Original-Received: from 94-21-154-78.pool.digikabel.hu ([94.21.154.78]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:34:10 +0200 Original-Received: from levelhalom by 94-21-154-78.pool.digikabel.hu with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:34:10 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 36 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: sea.gmane.org User-Agent: Loom/3.14 (http://gmane.org/) X-Loom-IP: 94.21.154.78 (Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; U; en) Presto/2.6.30 Version/10.60) 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:127147 Archived-At: Óscar Fuentes wanadoo.es> writes: > > Not really, the long term investment should be to teach modern terms to > Emacs, instead of insisting on forcing every newcomer to learn the Emacs > terms. > Exactly. Most of the time when I tell people about Emacs they try it and they say it's too alien and completion for popular languages (Java, C#) is much better in other tools (Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc). So in order to attract more new blood to Emacs there are two possible ways: 1. Do something which people care about much better than other tools. Completion comes to mind first, it should be very very good and it should work out of the box without any addition configuration. Due to the limited development resources for Emacs (I don't know how many paid developers work on it, but I guess not many) it's not a realistic expectation. 2. The other way is to make Emacs more accessible to newbies. Basic things should work out of the box as they work in other applications (e.g. why should one use a different paste key just in emacs when C-v works fine everywhere else?). Ease of entry should be the main target, because more users means more hackers too (some of them will come up with new ideas and contribute code), and more hackers means more resources for development which helps catching up with other editors in features which people consider basic in these days (e.g excellent completion out of the box).