Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>]

Dnia 2013-04-09, o godz. 04:10:07
42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Hello mailing list,
> 
> This might be considered off-topic.
> 
> The question is the title: have you been able to convert many people
> to Emacs / org-mode? Are converts all programmers, or those versed in
> programming? -- Or have you converted non-programmers, e.g., anyone
> who edits text for a living?

An interesting (maybe?) story: I did convert a friend to Emacs.  We work
on proofreading and typesetting papers for a journal, which means
massive (and sometimes quite repetitive) editing.  I cooked a small
Elisp utility which gets a list of lists; the car of each of them is a
regex and the cdr is a list of possible substitutions for it.  (For
example, something like "\([0-9]\{4\}\)" (w/o backslashes escaped here)
might get translated into "\1 year" or "year \1" (this is not the best
example due to English syntax - in Polish the word order is much more
flexible - but you get the idea).  My function walks through the
document, highlights any caught fragments and lets the user to press
TAB until the desired substitution appears.  It's not perfect, but it
helps us *a lot*.  When the friend saw it, he finally installed Emacs
(after being harassed by me for some 2+ years;)).

Now I'm in the process of showing him Org-mode.  Interestingly, the
feature which got him the most excited was clocking; this confirms that
different people have wildly different usage patterns (I guess for most
users clocking is completely unnecessary).

BTW: he's not a programmer (though very skilled at LaTeX).

> It's impossible for me to have a conversation these days without
> referring to org-mode. Since I use it for practically everything,
> there's no way to avoid raising the topic. However, I do find it
> difficult to convert people. I send them video captures showing off
> the features, give real-time demonstrations, etc., and offer to work
> them through the installation and lead them up the steep Emacs
> learning curve -- but thus far, I've only gotten a couple people to
> adopt it. And that after relentless advocacy.

I know that feeling from a hobby of mine; boardgamers are also (very
often) "evangelists" (me too).  Authorities on the subject usually warn
people not to do that;).

> Anyway, apologies if this seems to clutter the already highly active
> mailing list. But I do think questions of proselytization (because we
> /are/ talking religion here) is important.

Ha ha, one of my favorite inside jokes with my friends/colleagues is me
saying "I'm not particularly religious, sometimes I use Emacs and
sometimes Vim".  (Of course, only those who know I'm a devout
Catholic get the joke.  And in reality I use Vim very rarely, and
almost never on my computer.)

> 42

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University