From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Making Emacs more newbie friendly Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:34:20 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: References: <874qf8d3cy.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com> <7e4qf7yfgh.fsf@ada2.unipv.it> <7er7ibwmvj.fsf@ada2.unipv.it> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111257191 898 80.91.229.2 (19 Mar 2005 18:33:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:33:11 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 19 19:33:10 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCikz-0002EQ-4o for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:33:05 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCj1j-0006Xd-1X for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:50:23 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsmi-us.news.garr.it!newsmi-eu.news.garr.it!NewsITBone-GARR!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 41 Original-X-Trace: individual.net CLGlDCw41A9M78US0GcwcQB5XsFdVvIXgJ1L3Jx1f0mYphGn2j X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:FL8IObWWrL78Rus9CYl1RDF1tMU= Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:129428 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org X-MailScanner-To: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:24983 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:24983 PT writes: > On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:15:28 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: >>> >>> My enthusiasm has vanished, BTW. This all thread was just a >>> sudden, half-baked idea. Reading all the answers I have a more >>> thorough understanding of the situation. The development resources >>> available for Emacs are scarce and the idea has no obvious >>> benefits, >> >> It would be less exasperating conversing with you if you did not >> constantly insinuate stuff and put words into one's mouth. Nobody >> said that improving Emacs' appeal to newbies has no obvious >> benefits. > > It was my own conclusion after reading the answers. I don't see the > benefits anymore. The benefits to details of your original proposal, maybe. But that does not make the ongoing efforts of contributors go away. That Emacs has a toolbar and a menubar and tooltips and popup messages telling about keybindings for complex commands and draggable mode lines and configurable frame layout and support for mice in a variety of ways and an interactive help system and tutorials in several languages and help sheets and whatever and that menus and keybindings are constantly improved and fought over among the developers (which rarely use the menus at all) all counts for nothing in your eyes. The only thing that would count are your ideas, and you are disappointed because people don't say that just following your lead will cause paradise. Userfriendliness is a hard and long process, and throwing around a few halb-baked buzzphrases is not a major step forward in that regard. That does not mean that the goal in itself is not worthwhile, but it takes more than a quick stroke of presumed genius to put it into motion. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum