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 08:32:06 +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> <878w5fizcb.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1279009951 16336 80.91.229.12 (13 Jul 2010 08:32:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:32:31 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 13 10:32:27 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 1OYauh-0002hE-GW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:32:27 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:36446 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYaug-0008PV-Us for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:32:26 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=59222 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OYaua-0008O4-Ft for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:32:21 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYauX-0001Xf-MD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:32:20 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:59475) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYauX-0001XJ-A0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:32:17 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OYauU-0002ZU-JA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:32:14 +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 10:32:14 +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 10:32:14 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 46 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:127155 Archived-At: Stephen J. Turnbull xemacs.org> writes: > > You're ignoring the fact that some kinds of new users are far more > likely to convert to Emacs hackers. Specifically, the kind of people > who don't pay too much attention to "ease of use" anyway, but rather > head straight for the workbench and grab a power grinder to smooth out > the nicks and burrs in their own user experience. > Yes, and there are other kind of hackers how take a look at Emacs and say why should I bother with it if it's so alien? I'll create some Eclipse extension instead, since the Eclipse UI is much friendlier. I've read more than once in various places that Eclipse plugin development is quite complicated. On the other hand I have experience with extending Emacs and I know rapid prototyping in Emacs Lisp is quite a pleasant experience (once you've learned Emacs Lisp, that is). Creating an entrance barrier by keeping the default Emacs UI (keys, etc.) different than than ones people are used to in popular systems turns away lots of potential developers who could be very useful for Emacs once they get to know it better and get the hang of it. So yes, you are right. The current UI won't keep the very determined hackers away, but in my experience the question most new users (and most new hackers) ask when encountering Emacs is: "Why should I bother with it if it's so alien?" Since we don't have a killer feature which would attract new users like perfect code assist (context aware completion, instant display of documentation of elements, live indication of syntax errors, etc.) out of the box with near-zero configuration, we have to at least lower the barrier of entry, so users don't encounter unfamiliar things right at the first steps (copy/paste on different keys, etc.) which in my experience drives most of them away.