Re: GNU Emacs raison d'etre - 1981-ish version

[Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>]

>>>>> On Thu, 14 May 2020 23:26:05 +0200 (CEST), excalamus--- via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org> said:

    Emacs> Emacs presents a challenge to the user.  The challenge can be solved
    Emacs> through programming, but the user is unable to do this.  To help,
    Emacs> Emacs provides ready made components, functions bound to keys, which
    Emacs> complete the task when chained together.  The user realizes at some
    Emacs> point that 1) these actions are functions and 2) they have the ability
    Emacs> to write them.  Emacs provides the structure required for the user to
    Emacs> learn through source code (higher skill set) and C-h f (assistance).

This is a good explanation of why Emacs is the only editing system
that doesnʼt drive me up the wall: I can mold it as I see fit.

    Emacs> I believe that other editors could occupy this space but do not. 
    Emacs> Other editors are either word processors or IDEs.  Emacs is a hybrid;
    Emacs> there are authors who use Emacs solely for writing and the are
    Emacs> developers who use it solely for programming.  Emacs feels different
    Emacs> because it shortens the distance between question and answer.  Other
    Emacs> editors require searching externally (does MS Word even still have F1
    Emacs> help?).  Emacs can be searched inside and out.

Which is one of Emacs' great strengths, but I fear the current
generation are missing out on it: I see lots of problem reports saying
"website so and so says this, but my Emacs behaves differently", where
the solution is to consult the documentation inside emacs. It appears
people have become conditioned to doing a web search for manuals,
which often donʼt correspond to their installed version (as a
corollary, people almost never specify platform and/or version
either in such reports).

Robert