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 17:22:49 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: References: <874qf8d3cy.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111249397 13313 80.91.229.2 (19 Mar 2005 16:23:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:23:17 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 19 17:23:17 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgjD-0005Na-Nj for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:23:08 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgzw-00043n-Hy for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:40:24 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 67 Original-X-Trace: individual.net D9apv5iZtP8nAa2PPlsD1w2udz4ZQ6s3q9/cHNZnzI5GhFlbKm 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:w1uDAq5DYs1tVBANt0SGHrhj5KY= Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:129407 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:24962 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:24962 PT writes: > On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:33:37 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: > >> PT writes: >> >>> The newbies I met usually used a "visual" editor before. Like >>> SlickEdit, Eclipse or Visual Studio. >> >> Strange concept of a "newbie" here. > > Of course, I meant an Emacs newbie... One who used other software > before, but not Emacs. > >> So the vetoing power should stay with those that have an interest >> of keeping Emacs as their working editors for decades. If we can >> improve the first month of a newby without souring the last decade >> of a seasoned user, we will by all means do so. But bending over >> backwards for the sake of people that are unlikely to stay with >> Emacs in the long run, anyway, is a waste of effort. > > The question is: is more people using Emacs a good thing at all? Or > is it only an additional burden (more clueless people on the help > forums, etc.)? You are trying to frame loaded questions. What is "a good thing"? More people using Emacs is not a worthwhile objective per se. If it were, we should replace Emacs by toiletpaper, and its user base would explode. A worthwhile objective for a developer is to have Emacs become a more productive tool for his work. This is not unrelated to the size of its user base, since developers usually tend to start out as users. Nevertheless attracting newbies at any price, in particular the price of making Emacs less suitable for sustained productive work, is not a worthwhile goal. One has to keep in mind that Emacs is principally more an editing and text manipulation framework rather than a single application. And that means that every developer has _lots_ of areas within the contraption called Emacs that he is not familiar with. Accessing that functionality puts him on equal footing with a newbie, except for one thing: he is already acquainted with the "Emacs way of doing things". And so that this actually buys him something, consistency within Emacs is more important than consistency to other applications. This "Emacs way of doing things" is rather pervasive: maneuvering around it tends to complicate rather than simplify things. Making Emacs more similar to other applications is a long-winded process with high associated costs for developers, and also previous users. Newbies don't have an inherent right to be treated in preference to more experienced and dedicated users. > We should answer this question first, because if attracting more > users to Emacs is not really a priority then this thread is > completely pointless. If priority means "should overrule all other considerations" then it is my opinion that it should not be a priority. And I am one of the most involved people regarding usability on the Emacs developer list, and maintainer of the Emacs-based projects AUCTeX and preview-latex that have their main focus on productivity and usability. Does this tell you something? -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum