From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
To: Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com>
Cc: <emacs-devel@gnu.org>,
excalamus@tutanota.com,
Nathan Colinet <colinetnathan98@gmail.com>,
andreas.roehler@online.de, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: GNU Emacs raison d'etre
Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 12:46:46 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <p91ftc38vo9.fsf@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <871rnnvmdx.fsf@red-bean.com> (Karl Fogel's message of "Wed, 13 May 2020 11:18:50 -0500")
Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com> writes:
well said!> On 12 May 2020, excalamus--- via "Emacs development discussions." wrote:
>>May 11, 2020, 23:12 by rms@gnu.org:
>>What are we competing for? I feel that while other threads are
>>examining "missing features", it would be helpful to examine what GNU
>>Emacs does offer. Not only in software features, but maybe also in
>>philosophy, community, or tradition.
>>
>>What is it about GNU Emacs that makes this mailing list bustle with
>>enthusiasm? Other editors use GPL, provide source code, have
>>documentation, are customizable, and extendable. There's something
>>in how GNU Emacs implements these that is different. I feel like
>>there are taters to find if we dig a little.
>>
>>Is it because Emacs Lisp is unique to Emacs that Emacs teaches as
>>well as documents?
>>Is it that by being a pseudo-Lisp machine, Emacs puts users in the
>>zone of proximal development?
>>Is GNU Emacs the best embodiment of the GNU philosophy?
>
> Sure, I'll take the bait:
>
> To the best of my knowledge, no other editing environment rewards sustained user investment so well.
>
> With Emacs, if you keep investing -- i.e., acquiring knowledge and
> skill by reading documentation, writing customizations, and exploring
> others' customizations -- Emacs keeps rewarding you with a better and
> better editing experience. The degree to which it does this seems
> normal to many of us here, because we've been used to it for many
> years. I think we sometimes fail to appreciate the degree to which
> non-users, potential ("Emacs-curious") users, and even many actual new
> users are *not* aware of it: they don't realize how enormous the
> reward can be, and how broad its scope.
>
> This should probably affect how we think about promoting Emacs. Emacs
> shouldn't necessarily try to attract everyone who needs to edit text
> [1]. Many people who edit text nonetheless don't view text editing as
> a primary activity worthy of investment. Those users are not good
> candidates for Emacs.
>
> Emacs's best prospects are with the sorts of people who *do* see -- or
> who can be persuaded to see -- text editing as worthy of investment.
> There's a loose correlation in which good programmers tend to be those
> sorts of people, because good programmers are usually willing to
> invest in learning their tools in general. E.g., they'll learn their
> text editor the same way they'll learn their debugger, their
> programming framework, etc. But the set isn't limited to just
> programmers. For example, scientists and other academics who edit
> LaTeX documents are often good candidates for Emacs usage, because by
> both temperament and life situation they are well-positioned to
> understand how sustained investment in learning their editing
> environment could pay off in the long term.
>
> So I suggest that GNU Emacs's raison d'être is to be the text editor that best rewards sustained user investment.
>
> I think Emacs actually does so right now, too, and that we just haven't always communicated this fact clearly enough.
>
> Thus, instead of focusing on making Emacs easier for new users, it
> would be better to focus on smoothing out discontinuities in Emacs'
> investment-reward curve. The long-term health of Emacs as a project
> will not come from a large number of lightly committed users who don't
> appreciate what makes Emacs unique, but rather from a smaller number
> of users for whom Emacs is important and irreplaceable.
>
> I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't improve the new-user experience
> in Emacs, of course. We should make it as easy as possible for
> newcomers *while still prioritizing invested users*. In user
> experience design, there are frequently tradeoffs between making
> things easy for newcomers and making them rewarding for experts.
> Unfortunately, too often in design discussions, the new user
> experience automatically wins out -- it's like some kind of magic card
> that people play (even sometimes unconsciously) in UI/UX discussions.
> For Emacs, this would be a mistake. Emacs's great strength will never
> be in its new-user experience, and this is in some ways a necessary
> consequence of Emacs being so great for highly invested long-term
> users.
>
> This also suggests that the sorts of features that highly-invested
> users tend to want -- for example, LSP-based features -- should be
> more important to us than how square the menus are or what menu items
> are shown in a default startup configuration. When we make decisions
> that disappoint the core user base, we endanger the project much more
> than when we make decisions that disappoint users (or potential users)
> who weren't likely to become highly invested anyway.
>
> (The fact that Emacs promotes free software by being a good GPL'd
> program is nice too, and is important to many of us, but it's not
> unique to Emacs.)
>
> Best regards,
> -Karl
>
--
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-05-13 19:46 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 277+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-05-08 8:26 Making Emacs popular again with a video Nathan Colinet
2020-05-08 10:39 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-10 20:48 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-08 10:41 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-10 16:18 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-08 11:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-10 20:32 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-11 22:59 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-09 7:50 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-10 20:57 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-12 3:12 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-12 7:04 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-12 13:59 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-12 14:47 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-12 16:08 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-13 4:01 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-13 8:49 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-14 5:14 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-14 10:22 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-14 10:55 ` Robert Pluim
2020-05-15 3:25 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-15 7:55 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-15 10:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-15 10:43 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-15 11:23 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-15 19:15 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-15 18:41 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-22 19:09 ` Ben McGinnes
[not found] ` <E1jcLVP-0003SB-II@fencepost.gnu.org>
2020-05-24 19:16 ` Ben McGinnes
2020-05-14 14:13 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-14 7:38 ` Tim Cross
2020-05-14 7:51 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-14 14:18 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-14 15:36 ` Tim Cross
2020-05-13 10:43 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-12 8:23 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-13 3:55 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-13 8:18 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-13 10:53 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-13 16:20 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-14 2:18 ` (emacs) Intro [was: Making Emacs popular again with a video] excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-14 12:04 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-14 21:31 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-15 0:46 ` Dmitry Gutov
[not found] ` <d28fe30d-c192-8022-b758-d8b7019e49b5@yandex.ru-M7KnL6R----2>
2020-05-17 19:11 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-19 14:14 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
[not found] ` <d66793e5-07f9-4dd9-928d-e7e8c342b781@default>
[not found] ` <M7iByNw--3-2@tutanota.com>
2020-05-21 18:18 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
[not found] ` <M7sSK-m--3-2@tutanota.com-M7sSUVm--3-2>
2020-05-28 1:21 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-28 7:08 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-28 7:41 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-28 10:23 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-29 2:39 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-29 7:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-29 7:40 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-29 15:14 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-30 1:39 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-14 22:14 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-15 3:17 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-15 6:36 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-12 12:57 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-13 16:18 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-13 16:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-13 19:39 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-13 20:05 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-13 20:52 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-13 22:04 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-13 22:55 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-14 4:56 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-14 16:37 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-14 22:11 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-15 3:16 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-15 21:42 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-15 22:14 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-16 0:03 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-15 22:41 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-20 21:47 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-20 22:35 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-21 0:35 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-16 2:43 ` Eduardo Ochs
2020-05-18 3:46 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-18 11:26 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 8:05 ` Yuri Khan
2020-05-16 10:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 10:46 ` Yuri Khan
2020-05-17 1:28 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 1:39 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 1:40 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 1:59 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 2:52 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-17 9:32 ` Joost Kremers
2020-05-17 11:07 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-18 3:43 ` transient Richard Stallman
2020-05-18 6:58 ` transient Joost Kremers
2020-05-18 11:29 ` transient Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 18:41 ` transient Howard Melman
2020-05-18 19:35 ` transient John Yates
2020-05-18 19:57 ` transient Howard Melman
2020-05-19 5:38 ` transient Drew Adams
2020-05-19 14:00 ` transient Arthur Miller
2020-05-20 3:14 ` transient Michael Heerdegen
[not found] ` <87tuztngxr.fsf@mail.linkov.net>
2020-06-03 4:32 ` bug#39902: transient Michael Heerdegen
2020-06-03 22:49 ` bug#39902: 28.0.50; Marking in dired with active region Juri Linkov
2020-06-04 12:31 ` Michael Heerdegen
2020-06-04 22:18 ` Juri Linkov
2020-05-19 22:04 ` transient Stefan Kangas
2020-05-19 22:53 ` transient Drew Adams
2020-05-19 4:02 ` which-key Richard Stallman
2020-05-17 7:09 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre Drew Adams
2020-05-20 21:36 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-20 21:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-20 22:00 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-20 22:07 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-21 8:03 ` tomas
2020-05-21 9:33 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-21 10:04 ` tomas
2020-05-24 14:05 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-21 16:20 ` xristos
2020-05-24 13:45 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-24 16:52 ` xristos
2020-05-24 17:00 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-24 18:31 ` Philip K.
2020-05-25 17:34 ` João Távora
2020-05-26 4:14 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-26 11:32 ` João Távora
2020-05-27 3:08 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-27 5:01 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-29 12:59 ` Arthur Miller
2020-06-23 3:59 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-21 17:07 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-23 20:36 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-14 6:26 ` tomas
2020-05-14 6:16 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-15 3:18 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-16 0:56 ` Tak Kunihiro
2020-05-16 6:50 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 9:10 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 10:38 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 12:24 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 12:29 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 12:34 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 12:46 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 13:57 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 19:35 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 20:05 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-16 20:34 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 20:44 ` Bob Newell
2020-06-24 15:37 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2020-05-16 23:12 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-16 23:18 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-16 23:47 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-17 1:14 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 3:13 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-17 6:49 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 7:02 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 7:11 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 9:07 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 10:20 ` Marcin Borkowski
2020-05-17 11:07 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 15:25 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-17 15:48 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 17:06 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-17 17:31 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-17 18:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 20:03 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-18 8:32 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 11:39 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 13:02 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 13:38 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 16:31 ` Robert Pluim
2020-05-18 23:14 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-19 8:41 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 1:01 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 9:06 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 0:15 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-21 9:07 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 23:16 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-22 9:31 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-25 2:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-26 8:06 ` martin rudalics
2020-06-05 2:40 ` pop-up-mini-mode, was " Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-19 8:40 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 0:40 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 9:04 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 13:28 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 14:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 14:56 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 16:12 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 17:45 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 18:09 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 18:16 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 18:24 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 18:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 18:56 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 19:22 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 19:53 ` tomas
2020-05-20 21:22 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-21 7:43 ` tomas
2020-05-21 2:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-21 22:19 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-22 7:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-22 12:16 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 23:07 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 13:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-21 17:55 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 15:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-19 8:41 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 18:19 ` Suppressing beginning/end-of-buffer error messages (WAS: GNU Emacs raison d'etre) Noam Postavsky
2020-05-22 9:30 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-22 12:46 ` Noam Postavsky
[not found] ` <11bfe86b-131c-4f55-5125-c269a73e360d@gmx.at>
2020-05-23 11:10 ` Noam Postavsky
2020-05-17 18:36 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre Drew Adams
2020-05-17 21:04 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-17 21:48 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 18:38 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 21:17 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-17 21:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 8:33 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 11:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 21:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 18:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 17:59 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 18:07 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 7:54 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-17 11:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 18:11 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-16 23:01 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-17 2:55 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-28 4:12 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-28 5:51 ` Eduardo Ochs
2020-05-28 6:13 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-28 14:12 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-28 14:42 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-28 16:34 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-29 14:44 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-28 15:00 ` Philip K.
2020-05-28 15:13 ` João Távora
2020-05-28 16:04 ` T.V Raman
[not found] ` <p914ks0kpui.fsf@google.com-M8R14r9----2>
2020-05-28 16:12 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-28 16:46 ` T.V Raman
2020-05-28 17:34 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-28 18:11 ` andres.ramirez
[not found] ` <877dwwezfr.fsf@red-bean.com-M8RLd3p--3-2>
2020-05-28 18:28 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-29 1:12 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-30 1:44 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-30 2:02 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-30 9:13 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-30 16:43 ` Alfred M. Szmidt
2020-05-31 7:07 ` Richard Stallman
2020-06-08 17:37 ` REmacs was " T.V Raman
2020-06-01 7:29 ` Meaning behind Control-G Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-01 7:56 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-01 9:06 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-01 13:44 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-06-02 1:51 ` Paul Eggert
2020-06-02 5:58 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-02 13:50 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-06-02 15:38 ` Drew Adams
2020-06-02 11:46 ` John Yates
2020-07-10 12:13 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre Lars Brinkhoff
2020-07-10 14:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-07-11 2:16 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-28 16:41 ` FW: " Drew Adams
2020-05-28 17:37 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-28 20:33 ` Perry E. Metzger
2020-05-28 23:44 ` T.V Raman
2020-05-29 3:04 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-13 19:46 ` T.V Raman [this message]
2020-05-13 21:00 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-13 21:02 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-13 22:22 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-14 4:20 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-14 0:04 ` John Wiegley
2020-05-14 5:08 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-14 20:29 ` Karl Fogel
[not found] <64c4b2e4-3c07-0ad4-bcdf-39e95cae8a57.ref@aol.com>
2020-08-09 17:11 ` Clive Tovero
2020-08-10 1:26 ` Alexandre Garreau
[not found] <c0ffdaa1-90cc-2bb3-d2e0-93c7115df969.ref@aol.com>
2020-08-10 2:49 ` Clive Tovero
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