converting people to Emacs and org-mode

converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[42 147]

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?

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.

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.

42

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Suvayu Ali]

On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 04:10:07AM -0400, 42 147 wrote:
> 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.

I would say Org-mode users form the moderate demography among the
followers of the church of Emacs ;).

Personally I think, any attempts at conversion is futile.  Just like
real religion, choosing an editor is an immensely personal decision if
editing text (in whatever form, source code, or prose) is a major part
of your day.  You should stop at mentioning and bragging about Org-mode;
leave the decision to try or switch to the other person.

Just my 2¢ :)

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> writes:

> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 04:10:07AM -0400, 42 147 wrote:
>> 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.
>
> I would say Org-mode users form the moderate demography among the
> followers of the church of Emacs ;).
>
> Personally I think, any attempts at conversion is futile.  Just like
> real religion, choosing an editor is an immensely personal decision if
> editing text (in whatever form, source code, or prose) is a major part
> of your day.  You should stop at mentioning and bragging about Org-mode;
> leave the decision to try or switch to the other person.

Not when they're your employees!

Only half joking,

Eric

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Karl Voit]

* Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Personally I think, any attempts at conversion is futile.  

I agree only for cases, where the person does not have issues with
the current editor/workflow.

> Just like real religion, choosing an editor is an immensely
> personal decision if editing text (in whatever form, source code,
> or prose) is a major part of your day.  

From my experience, I do have to disagree in this point. *Most*
people do not care at all, which editor they are using. Most people
did not spend a reasonable time on the decision which tools they are
using. The issue for most people is that there is a change of
habits, not a change of editor.

Only a small percentage of people really do care about a specific
product.  The others are happy to switch in case they see a certain
amount of benefits.

Without any proper set of benefits, it's a religious war, I agree.
In case of Emacs, there is *always* a proper set of benefits if you
are willing to learn this monster IMHO :-)

-- 
mail|git|SVN|photos|postings|SMS|phonecalls|RSS|CSV|XML to Org-mode:
       > get Memacs from https://github.com/novoid/Memacs <

https://github.com/novoid/extract_pdf_annotations_to_orgmode + more on github

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Thorsten Jolitz]

42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> writes:

> This might be considered off-topic.

Maybe not? I know of a fantastic Lisp dialect and
web/database programming-environment out there 

,------------------------------------
| PicoLisp
| http://picolisp.com/5000/!wiki?home
`------------------------------------

that suffers exactly from the rather low conversion rate of people to
it, which is kind of hard to explain given its quality. 

But maybe Paul Graham is right in
http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html, at least with regards to
programming languages:

,-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| A friend of mine once told an eminent operating systems expert that he
| wanted to design a really good programming language. The expert told him
| that it would be a waste of time, that programming languages don't
| become popular or unpopular based on their merits, and so no matter how
| good his language was, no one would use it. At least, that was what had
| happened to the language he had designed.
`-------------------------------------------------------------------------

And just like I try to spell the word about amazing PicoLisp with this
email, I wrote an Org-mode article in the student magazine of my former
German distance university with the title

,------------------------------------------------------
| Self-organization with Org-mode for distance students
`------------------------------------------------------

(in German)

Its in 

,-------------------------------------------
| "SprachRohr"-Ausgabe 04/2012 FernUni Hagen
`-------------------------------------------

and the cover can be seen here: 
http://www.fernstudis.de/node/1203

unfortunately only the cover, since download is restricted to
immatriculated students, but I reached some 50-60k readers with this
article and recieved very positive feedback, I cite from an anonymous
fellow distance student:

,----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| [...] ich gehöre normalerweise nicht zu den Leserbriefschreibern, aber hier
| muss ich einfach mal ein ganz großes Lob loswerden: Vielen Dank für den
| Artikel über Emacs Org-Mode - der erste Artikel [...] der mich wirklich
| weiterbringt und ganz sehr zum "Weiterforschen" anregt. Org-Mode scheint
| genau das Werkzeug zu sein, nach dem ich lange gesucht habe.
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(in English more or less: "normally I don't write reader comments, but
Org-mode seems exactly the tool I was looking for and I feel very
motivated to learn more about it after reading your article")

So maybe there are ways to reach more people with less effort than in
one-to-one conversion talks? Although, even with 50k readers, I will of
course never know if I really achieved a single conversion. 

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Carsten Dominik]

On 9 apr. 2013, at 10:46, Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> wrote:

> 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> This might be considered off-topic.
> 
> Maybe not? I know of a fantastic Lisp dialect and
> web/database programming-environment out there 
> 
> ,------------------------------------
> | PicoLisp
> | http://picolisp.com/5000/!wiki?home
> `------------------------------------
> 
> that suffers exactly from the rather low conversion rate of people to
> it, which is kind of hard to explain given its quality. 
> 
> But maybe Paul Graham is right in
> http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html, at least with regards to
> programming languages:
> 
> ,-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | A friend of mine once told an eminent operating systems expert that he
> | wanted to design a really good programming language. The expert told him
> | that it would be a waste of time, that programming languages don't
> | become popular or unpopular based on their merits, and so no matter how
> | good his language was, no one would use it. At least, that was what had
> | happened to the language he had designed.
> `-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> And just like I try to spell the word about amazing PicoLisp with this
> email, I wrote an Org-mode article in the student magazine of my former
> German distance university with the title
> 
> ,------------------------------------------------------
> | Self-organization with Org-mode for distance students
> `------------------------------------------------------


I would be interested to read this article.  Can you make it available?

- Carsten

> 
> (in German)
> 
> Its in 
> 
> ,-------------------------------------------
> | "SprachRohr"-Ausgabe 04/2012 FernUni Hagen
> `-------------------------------------------
> 
> and the cover can be seen here: 
> http://www.fernstudis.de/node/1203
> 
> unfortunately only the cover, since download is restricted to
> immatriculated students, but I reached some 50-60k readers with this
> article and recieved very positive feedback, I cite from an anonymous
> fellow distance student:
> 
> ,----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | [...] ich gehöre normalerweise nicht zu den Leserbriefschreibern, aber hier
> | muss ich einfach mal ein ganz großes Lob loswerden: Vielen Dank für den
> | Artikel über Emacs Org-Mode - der erste Artikel [...] der mich wirklich
> | weiterbringt und ganz sehr zum "Weiterforschen" anregt. Org-Mode scheint
> | genau das Werkzeug zu sein, nach dem ich lange gesucht habe.
> `----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> (in English more or less: "normally I don't write reader comments, but
> Org-mode seems exactly the tool I was looking for and I feel very
> motivated to learn more about it after reading your article")
> 
> So maybe there are ways to reach more people with less effort than in
> one-to-one conversion talks? Although, even with 50k readers, I will of
> course never know if I really achieved a single conversion. 
> 
> -- 
> cheers,
> Thorsten
> 
> 

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Moritz Ulrich]

I'm interested in the article too. Maybe you can arrange something
with the editors if even the creator of org-mode is interested in the
article?


On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Carsten Dominik
<carsten.dominik@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9 apr. 2013, at 10:46, Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> This might be considered off-topic.
>>
>> Maybe not? I know of a fantastic Lisp dialect and
>> web/database programming-environment out there
>>
>> ,------------------------------------
>> | PicoLisp
>> | http://picolisp.com/5000/!wiki?home
>> `------------------------------------
>>
>> that suffers exactly from the rather low conversion rate of people to
>> it, which is kind of hard to explain given its quality.
>>
>> But maybe Paul Graham is right in
>> http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html, at least with regards to
>> programming languages:
>>
>> ,-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> | A friend of mine once told an eminent operating systems expert that he
>> | wanted to design a really good programming language. The expert told him
>> | that it would be a waste of time, that programming languages don't
>> | become popular or unpopular based on their merits, and so no matter how
>> | good his language was, no one would use it. At least, that was what had
>> | happened to the language he had designed.
>> `-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> And just like I try to spell the word about amazing PicoLisp with this
>> email, I wrote an Org-mode article in the student magazine of my former
>> German distance university with the title
>>
>> ,------------------------------------------------------
>> | Self-organization with Org-mode for distance students
>> `------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> I would be interested to read this article.  Can you make it available?
>
> - Carsten
>
>>
>> (in German)
>>
>> Its in
>>
>> ,-------------------------------------------
>> | "SprachRohr"-Ausgabe 04/2012 FernUni Hagen
>> `-------------------------------------------
>>
>> and the cover can be seen here:
>> http://www.fernstudis.de/node/1203
>>
>> unfortunately only the cover, since download is restricted to
>> immatriculated students, but I reached some 50-60k readers with this
>> article and recieved very positive feedback, I cite from an anonymous
>> fellow distance student:
>>
>> ,----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> | [...] ich gehöre normalerweise nicht zu den Leserbriefschreibern, aber hier
>> | muss ich einfach mal ein ganz großes Lob loswerden: Vielen Dank für den
>> | Artikel über Emacs Org-Mode - der erste Artikel [...] der mich wirklich
>> | weiterbringt und ganz sehr zum "Weiterforschen" anregt. Org-Mode scheint
>> | genau das Werkzeug zu sein, nach dem ich lange gesucht habe.
>> `----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> (in English more or less: "normally I don't write reader comments, but
>> Org-mode seems exactly the tool I was looking for and I feel very
>> motivated to learn more about it after reading your article")
>>
>> So maybe there are ways to reach more people with less effort than in
>> one-to-one conversion talks? Although, even with 50k readers, I will of
>> course never know if I really achieved a single conversion.
>>
>> --
>> cheers,
>> Thorsten
>>
>>
>
>

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Thorsten Jolitz]

Moritz Ulrich <moritz@tarn-vedra.de> writes:

> I'm interested in the article too. Maybe you can arrange something
> with the editors if even the creator of org-mode is interested in the
> article?

I already sent the pdf version of the magazine in a PM to the creator of
Org-mode so he can decide if its worth the pain convert it from plain
text to Org-mode and put it on Worg. 

Its not really special and closely oriented at the structure of the new
orgmode website. Its more the big audience I could reach that made the
whole thing interesting. 

PS 
I already asked the editors - legally it would be possible to republish
on Worg. I'll ask them again if its allowed to cut the fully formated
article from the magazine-pdf and upload this 4 page pdf on Worg. 

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Torsten Wagner]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1380 bytes --]

Hi,
If I show org-mode to someone and if he/she points out the ugly graphic I
stop at that point.
If the reaction is more like "Hey how did you do that?" I might have a
potential candidate.
Thus, for me it comes down to two groups the once who need a
graphical pleasant system which hides away all technical details and the
once who like to be in control of what they are doing.

A spin-off question to this thread would be, how to make joints between
these two groups?

Best,
Torsten


On 9 April 2013 12:30, Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> wrote:

> Moritz Ulrich <moritz@tarn-vedra.de> writes:
>
> > I'm interested in the article too. Maybe you can arrange something
> > with the editors if even the creator of org-mode is interested in the
> > article?
>
> I already sent the pdf version of the magazine in a PM to the creator of
> Org-mode so he can decide if its worth the pain convert it from plain
> text to Org-mode and put it on Worg.
>
> Its not really special and closely oriented at the structure of the new
> orgmode website. Its more the big audience I could reach that made the
> whole thing interesting.
>
> PS
> I already asked the editors - legally it would be possible to republish
> on Worg. I'll ask them again if its allowed to cut the fully formated
> article from the magazine-pdf and upload this 4 page pdf on Worg.
>
> --
> cheers,
> Thorsten
>
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2048 bytes --]

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Eric S Fraga]

Torsten Wagner <torsten.wagner@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
> If I show org-mode to someone and if he/she points out the ugly graphic I
> stop at that point.

As I use a light text on dark background, I stop when they ask if there
is something wrong with my monitor because the background is
black...  sigh.

And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
unfortunately.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D
: in Emacs 24.3.50.1 and Org release_8.0-pre-473-gf20de0

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Loyall, David]

I might have converted someone this weekend.

I had been babbling about Emacs, lisp, and the early 1980s to him for some time. 

I told him that Emacs was a 37 year old tree, that it had carefully tended for all that time by a community of folks that really cared about doing things the right way, and the result was that it already knows how to do just about all the small tasks that you can imagine asking it to do.

I started to demonstrate org sparse tree functionality[1], and he joked: "Yeah, yeah, but can it tell me what time sunset will be today?"

So I fired up the info browser and started searching and in less than sixty seconds, we'd invoked M-x sunrise-sunset .[2]

We didn't know our own longitude and latitude offhand, but it didn't matter: he was already impressed.  After I assured him that this was a built in function, and that I'd really never heard of it until just now, he said that he would look into Emacs.

:)

--Dave

[1] I should really make sure that I've memorized key bindings (well enough that enjoying a couple beers doesn't make me forget them) before trying this again.
[2] On my work PC, this says "Cannot open load file: solar".  Thank goodness it happened to work on my home laptop!  (I won't fix this; no worries.)

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Bastien]

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
> also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
> much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
> unfortunately.

On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
he could point to a way to quantify this.)

I use xcalib (http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/) to quickly switch
from light-on-dark (most often) to dark-on-light (from time to
time) and I recommend it.

-- 
 Bastien

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Sebastien Vauban]

Bastien wrote:
> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga-hclig2XLE9Zaa/9Udqfwiw@public.gmane.org> writes:
>
>> And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
>> also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
>> much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
>> unfortunately.
>
> On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
> background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
> Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
> he could point to a way to quantify this.)
>
> I use xcalib (http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/) to quickly switch
> from light-on-dark (most often) to dark-on-light (from time to
> time) and I recommend it.

What I once heard from ergonomical studies is that "black on white" was better
than "white on black". Though, is it based on real grounds?

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[John Hendy]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Sebastien Vauban
<wxhgmqzgwmuf@spammotel.com> wrote:
> Bastien wrote:
>> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>>
>>> And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
>>> also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
>>> much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
>>> unfortunately.
>>
>> On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
>> background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
>> Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
>> he could point to a way to quantify this.)
>>
>> I use xcalib (http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/) to quickly switch
>> from light-on-dark (most often) to dark-on-light (from time to
>> time) and I recommend it.
>
> What I once heard from ergonomical studies is that "black on white" was better
> than "white on black". Though, is it based on real grounds?
>

Others want to know, too. If you find the answer... you'll get a lot of votes :)
- http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6925/are-light-on-dark-colour-schemes-for-computer-screens-better-for-programmers


John


> Best regards,
>   Seb
>
> --
> Sebastien Vauban
>
>

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Achim Gratz]

Sebastien Vauban writes:
> What I once heard from ergonomical studies is that "black on white"
> was better than "white on black". Though, is it based on real grounds?

All these studies dependend on which CRT was used (most of which
produced blurry pictures for dark-on-light content) and are mostly moot
with current LCD monitors.  The remaining differences are due to
environmental conditions, but if you follow the lighting recommendations
for office work and adjust the screen brightness (most LCD screens
default much too bright as that looks better in stores) you'll be almost
certainly much better off with a light background and black script, for
the simple reason that your eyes' pupils will be smaller and the depth
of focus larger that way.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptation for Waldorf Blofeld V1.15B11:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSDada

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Thorsten Jolitz]

Achim Gratz <Stromeko@nexgo.de> writes:

> Sebastien Vauban writes:
>> What I once heard from ergonomical studies is that "black on white"
>> was better than "white on black". Though, is it based on real grounds?
>
> All these studies dependend on which CRT was used (most of which
> produced blurry pictures for dark-on-light content) and are mostly moot
> with current LCD monitors.  The remaining differences are due to
> environmental conditions, but if you follow the lighting recommendations
> for office work and adjust the screen brightness (most LCD screens
> default much too bright as that looks better in stores) you'll be almost
> certainly much better off with a light background and black script, for
> the simple reason that your eyes' pupils will be smaller and the depth
> of focus larger that way.

Scientists prove all kind of things, and they are utterly wrong so
often. Why not ask your eyes? Try 'emacs -fg wheat -bg black' or a nice
dark color theme (e.g.
http://suvayu.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/color-theme-dark-emacs/) for a
while and then check out if going back to 'black on white' doesn't hurt
your eyes.

My eyes clearly tell me that a dark background is better (for me). 

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Samuel Wales]

On 4/22/13, Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> wrote:
> I use xcalib (http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/) to quickly switch
> from light-on-dark (most often) to dark-on-light (from time to
> time) and I recommend it.

Interesting.  How did you use it to do that?  I had assumed that
colors could not be inverted automatically without algorithms
specifically designed for the purpose.

Samuel

-- 
The Kafka Pandemic: http://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com

The disease DOES progress.  MANY people have died from it.  ANYBODY
can get it.  There is NO hope without action.  This means YOU.

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Carsten Dominik]

On 22.4.2013, at 19:11, Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> wrote:

> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> 
>> And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
>> also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
>> much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
>> unfortunately.
> 
> On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
> background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
> Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
> he could point to a way to quantify this.)
> 
> I use xcalib (http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/) to quickly switch
> from light-on-dark (most often) to dark-on-light (from time to
> time) and I recommend it.

Yes, off-topic, but in a nice way.

My experience is also that something below the highest contrast
is much easier on the eyes.  My most recent discovery in this
space is http://stereopsis.com/flux/.  It is a free app that takes
the blue out of your screen when the sun sets.  So if you decide
to open your laptop at night, that blazing while will have made
way for a yellowish screen.  I find this extremely pleasant.  If I
now switch back to full white late at night, I have the feeling
my eyes are burned away.

- Carsten

OT: Emacs screen colors (was: converting people to Emacs and org-mode)

[Karl Voit]

* Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 22.4.2013, at 19:11, Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>> 
>> On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
>> background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
>> Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
>> he could point to a way to quantify this.)

I can copy that from what I read and what I experienced so far.

>> I use xcalib (http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/) to quickly switch
>> from light-on-dark (most often) to dark-on-light (from time to
>> time) and I recommend it.

I am using the solarized light theme. The dark theme I installed as
well but I hardly switch to it.

> My experience is also that something below the highest contrast
> is much easier on the eyes.  My most recent discovery in this
> space is http://stereopsis.com/flux/.  It is a free app that takes
> the blue out of your screen when the sun sets.

On OS X, I am using flux as well. Definitely recommended!

On Debian GNU/Linux, I am using redshift[1] for the same purpose
because flux had some instability issues.

So the bright theme gets warmer in the evening which fixes this
issue to me. It always huts my eyes a lot when I temporarily disable
redshift/flux :-)

  1. http://jonls.dk/redshift/
-- 
mail|git|SVN|photos|postings|SMS|phonecalls|RSS|CSV|XML to Org-mode:
       > get Memacs from https://github.com/novoid/Memacs <

https://github.com/novoid/extract_pdf_annotations_to_orgmode + more on github

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Eric S Fraga]

Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:

> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
>> also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
>> much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
>> unfortunately.
>
> On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
> background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
> Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
> he could point to a way to quantify this.)

It is indeed all about contrast and the problem is that, in many
environments, the lighting of the environment is significantly lower
brightness than a white background screen.  YMMV, of course ;-)

Note that this is for emitting devices as opposed to reflective
surfaces, such as paper and e-readers, where black on white is better.

Personally, I have problems with my eyes unfortunately and I do need to
configure systems so that I don't end up with headaches every day.

Off-topic but a very important selling point for Emacs, IMO.  It is so
easy to change colour themes and have results that look good in
seconds.  Contrast this with most other software where it is just plain
difficult if not impossible to configure the colours as one would
like.  And org mode works very well with most of the colour themes I
have tried.

Anyway, back to normal programming on this channel! :-)

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D
: in Emacs 24.3.50.1 and Org release_8.0-pre-347-g4b139e

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Jude DaShiell]

Accessibility standards cover this area pretty thoroughly.  
http://governor.state.tx.us/disabilities/accessibledocs/ has some 
information that might be bent to emacs-orgmode's purposes.

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013, Eric S Fraga wrote:

> Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> >
> >> And I've not only given up trying to convert anybody to Emacs, I have
> >> also given up trying to explain why a dark background with light text is
> >> much better on the eyes.  Too much inertia and bad practices out there
> >> unfortunately.
> >
> > On this slightly off-topic subject, an oculist told me the dark
> > background did not really matter, what matters is the contrast.
> > Very high and very low are not good, something inbetween (but
> > he could point to a way to quantify this.)
> 
> It is indeed all about contrast and the problem is that, in many
> environments, the lighting of the environment is significantly lower
> brightness than a white background screen.  YMMV, of course ;-)
> 
> Note that this is for emitting devices as opposed to reflective
> surfaces, such as paper and e-readers, where black on white is better.
> 
> Personally, I have problems with my eyes unfortunately and I do need to
> configure systems so that I don't end up with headaches every day.
> 
> Off-topic but a very important selling point for Emacs, IMO.  It is so
> easy to change colour themes and have results that look good in
> seconds.  Contrast this with most other software where it is just plain
> difficult if not impossible to configure the colours as one would
> like.  And org mode works very well with most of the colour themes I
> have tried.
> 
> Anyway, back to normal programming on this channel! :-)
> 
> 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
jude <jdashiel@shellworld.net>
Microsoft, windows is accessible. why do blind people need screen readers?

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Eric S Fraga]

Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@shellworld.net> writes:

> Accessibility standards cover this area pretty thoroughly.  
> http://governor.state.tx.us/disabilities/accessibledocs/ has some 
> information that might be bent to emacs-orgmode's purposes.

Thanks.  Very useful resource.  I've passed this on to my students!

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D
: in Emacs 24.3.50.1 and Org release_8.0.1-19-g9655a1

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Bastien]

Hi Thorsten,

Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> writes:

> I already asked the editors - legally it would be possible to republish
> on Worg. I'll ask them again if its allowed to cut the fully formated
> article from the magazine-pdf and upload this 4 page pdf on Worg. 

Better to add it somewhere else and create a link to it from Worg,
because anything in Worg needs to be GFDL.

-- 
 Bastien

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Carsten Dominik]

On 9 apr. 2013, at 10:10, 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 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?


I have found that even without me trying to convert people, a lot of
people are picking up Org-mode, if they are using Emacs already.  I think
that in my working environment, pretty much everyone who is using Emacs
at least occasionally has heard about Org, and most of them are using it
at least for something.  Not the full suit of features, mind you, but
brain storming or document drafting, certainly.

Trying to convert people who are outside the reach of Emacs is
pretty futile, unless they are programmer types who easily take
up new tools.

I have heard a number of success stories of people who try to be
writers and who find that sticking ideas and snippets into a
re-arrabgable outline works *much* better for them than any other
system they have tried.

A few examples:

http://awarewriter.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/org-mode-for-writing-structure-focus/
http://awarewriter.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/monday-musings-org-mode-for-writing-ii/
http://emacslife.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/org-mode-and-novel-writing/
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/22/emacs-for-writers-org-mode/

- Carsten

> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 42
> 
> 

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Bastien]

Hi John,

interesting topic.

My take on this is that *individual* attempts can be deceptive
(for reasons that Suvayu raised), but *collective* attempts are
always somehow successful.

By "individual attempts" I mean face-to-face demos and preaching,
which can help some Emacs users discover how they could use Emacs
more effectively for notes and TODO lists, but will surely fail at
convincing non-Emacs users.

(Oh, btw, the above is not entirely true: I recently participated
to a Vim-dedicated informal group, where I picked up many useful Vim
tricks, and I was surprised to see that many Vimers just love Org's
tables --- to the point that they have tricks to display Org tables
in Vim buffers...)

By "collective attempts", I mean contributions to the vast pool of
Org tutorials/demos/screencasts.  This is how we ensure potential
users will get an impression that "this is easy to do with Org",
which is the main feeling you need to have to test it.

Think of it as "low floor, high ceilings": power users push for
higher ceilings, while neebies push for low floors.  We can deal
with high ceilings by interacting on the list, but we are better
at lowering floors by contributing with tutorials, blog entries,
etc.

Just try to write something simple, it may convert more people 
you know that oral preaching near the coffee machine :)

My 2 cents of course,

-- 
 Bastien

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Russell Adams]

My experience has been that after watching me manage a project in Org
for a few weeks, I have customers beg me to help them install it on
their PC. I've had quite a few converts through working together and
by example.

My $0.02.

Thanks.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Russell Adams                            RLAdams@AdamsInfoServ.com

PGP Key ID:     0x1160DCB3           http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/

Fingerprint:    1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F  66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Russell Adams <RLAdams@AdamsInfoServ.Com> writes:

> My experience has been that after watching me manage a project in Org
> for a few weeks, I have customers beg me to help them install it on
> their PC. I've had quite a few converts through working together and
> by example.

Perhaps the web incarnations of org could help here too. Say the manager
of a small group project were able to create a web-version of an agenda,
and project members could filter that by clicking on javascript-enabled
versions of tags corresponding to their TODOs, and even click the TODOs
to change state, that could be a nice introduction to project management
in Org. It might require too much org functionality to be re-written in
javascript though? Dunno.

E

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Eric Abrahamsen writes:

> Russell Adams <RLAdams@AdamsInfoServ.Com> writes:
>
>> My experience has been that after watching me manage a project in Org
>> for a few weeks, I have customers beg me to help them install it on
>> their PC. I've had quite a few converts through working together and
>> by example.
>
> Perhaps the web incarnations of org could help here too. Say the manager
> of a small group project were able to create a web-version of an agenda,
> and project members could filter that by clicking on javascript-enabled
> versions of tags corresponding to their TODOs, and even click the TODOs
> to change state, that could be a nice introduction to project management
> in Org. It might require too much org functionality to be re-written in
> javascript though? Dunno.
>
> E

I think a web application that allowed for
orgmode-as-a-group-todo-management-system thing would be huge.  It would
require a lot of thinking of how to approach it in a way that would be
nice and make sense.  I'm not really sure what it would look like.  But
hook that up to git and you'd have a really interesting bug tracking
system.

There was that relevant GSoC project, but I'd be interested in this
happening in python or similar.  Now that we have the standard for
orgmode as a file format...

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Sebastien Vauban]

Hi Christopher,

Christopher Allan Webber wrote:
> Eric Abrahamsen writes:
>> Russell Adams <RLAdams-oD4XmFtju8vuCfmLQ01/GwC/G2K4zDHf@public.gmane.org> writes:
>>
>>> My experience has been that after watching me manage a project in Org
>>> for a few weeks, I have customers beg me to help them install it on
>>> their PC. I've had quite a few converts through working together and
>>> by example.
>>
>> Perhaps the web incarnations of org could help here too. Say the manager
>> of a small group project were able to create a web-version of an agenda,
>> and project members could filter that by clicking on javascript-enabled
>> versions of tags corresponding to their TODOs, and even click the TODOs
>> to change state, that could be a nice introduction to project management
>> in Org. It might require too much org functionality to be re-written in
>> javascript though? Dunno.
>
> I think a web application that allowed for
> orgmode-as-a-group-todo-management-system thing would be huge.  It would
> require a lot of thinking of how to approach it in a way that would be
> nice and make sense.  I'm not really sure what it would look like.  But
> hook that up to git and you'd have a really interesting bug tracking
> system.

I guess it should be in the spirit of configurable organizers like the
TiddlyWiki based GTD systems (see http://www.tiddlywiki.com/):

- MPTW (MonkeyPirateTiddlyWiki) :: http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com/
- mGSD :: http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html and
  http://thinkcreatesolve.biz/mGSDEnhancements.html
- D-cubed
- tbGTD :: http://tbgtd.tiddlyspot.com/

That is the killer brother application for Org, for sure.

> There was that relevant GSoC project, but I'd be interested in this
> happening in python or similar.  Now that we have the standard for
> orgmode as a file format...

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Eric Schulte]

Last fall I wrote a very simple elnode based web server which allows for
Org-mode files to be viewed and edited through a web browser.

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/58773/focus=61752

It seems relevant to this discussion.  I haven't touched the code in
some time, so it may need to be updated to work with a current Org-mode
(although it did use the new exporter).  I've had a version running on
my home server continuously since the fall, and find it is the only way
I can get non-Emacs people to edit Org-mode files.

Cheers,

"Sebastien Vauban" <wxhgmqzgwmuf@spammotel.com> writes:

> Hi Christopher,
>
> Christopher Allan Webber wrote:
>> Eric Abrahamsen writes:
>>> Russell Adams <RLAdams@AdamsInfoServ.Com> writes:
>>>
>>>> My experience has been that after watching me manage a project in Org
>>>> for a few weeks, I have customers beg me to help them install it on
>>>> their PC. I've had quite a few converts through working together and
>>>> by example.
>>>
>>> Perhaps the web incarnations of org could help here too. Say the manager
>>> of a small group project were able to create a web-version of an agenda,
>>> and project members could filter that by clicking on javascript-enabled
>>> versions of tags corresponding to their TODOs, and even click the TODOs
>>> to change state, that could be a nice introduction to project management
>>> in Org. It might require too much org functionality to be re-written in
>>> javascript though? Dunno.
>>
>> I think a web application that allowed for
>> orgmode-as-a-group-todo-management-system thing would be huge.  It would
>> require a lot of thinking of how to approach it in a way that would be
>> nice and make sense.  I'm not really sure what it would look like.  But
>> hook that up to git and you'd have a really interesting bug tracking
>> system.
>
> I guess it should be in the spirit of configurable organizers like the
> TiddlyWiki based GTD systems (see http://www.tiddlywiki.com/):
>
> - MPTW (MonkeyPirateTiddlyWiki) :: http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com/
> - mGSD :: http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html and
>   http://thinkcreatesolve.biz/mGSDEnhancements.html
> - D-cubed
> - tbGTD :: http://tbgtd.tiddlyspot.com/
>
> That is the killer brother application for Org, for sure.
>
>> There was that relevant GSoC project, but I'd be interested in this
>> happening in python or similar.  Now that we have the standard for
>> orgmode as a file format...
>
> Best regards,
>   Seb

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Loyall, David]

> Subject: Re: [O] converting people to Emacs and org-mode
[snip]
> Perhaps the web incarnations of org could help here too.
 
I plan to bring attention to Emacs by publishing a wiki on our intranet.

ikiwiki[1] is a simple perl based wiki compiler.  You maintain a tree of text documents in VCS, compile them into a network of linked HTML documents on demand (or on commit via a hook) and publish them on any http server (or whatever).

Ikiwiki has an exporter framework that invokes different tools to export (or compile) different file formats.  For example, it is trivial to configure it to render foo.lisp and bar.c as foo.lisp.html and bar.c.html, which contain pretty renderings of the code.

There is an org-mode plugin[2] for ikiwiki that I am experimenting with.  It invokes an Emacs session to call the org exporter.

Like most wikis, ikiwiki also allows users to create and edit content via http.  (Being perl, ikiwiki uses (modern) CGI.)  The interface is a simple HTML text area.

I intend to allow users to alter .org files via ikiwiki's web interface and have ikiwiki run them through the org exporter after each save (which is also a VCS commit).

When users start to feel limited by the textbox, I'll suggest that they use Emacs and grant them direct file access to the VCS that stores all the .org files. (git in my case.)

Wish me luck. :)

Incidentally, I'd find an org-mode vs. Microsoft OneNote feature comparison matrix useful.  Anybody got that?

Cheers,
--Dave

[1] http://ikiwiki.info/
[2] https://github.com/chrismgray/ikiwiki-org-plugin

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Chris Gray]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1904 bytes --]

Please let me know if you have any problems with the ikiwiki plugin or any
feature requests.  I haven't been too active with it lately, but I'm still
around. :)

Cheers,
Chris


On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Loyall, David <david.loyall@nebraska.gov>wrote:

> > Subject: Re: [O] converting people to Emacs and org-mode
> [snip]
> > Perhaps the web incarnations of org could help here too.
>
> I plan to bring attention to Emacs by publishing a wiki on our intranet.
>
> ikiwiki[1] is a simple perl based wiki compiler.  You maintain a tree of
> text documents in VCS, compile them into a network of linked HTML documents
> on demand (or on commit via a hook) and publish them on any http server (or
> whatever).
>
> Ikiwiki has an exporter framework that invokes different tools to export
> (or compile) different file formats.  For example, it is trivial to
> configure it to render foo.lisp and bar.c as foo.lisp.html and bar.c.html,
> which contain pretty renderings of the code.
>
> There is an org-mode plugin[2] for ikiwiki that I am experimenting with.
>  It invokes an Emacs session to call the org exporter.
>
> Like most wikis, ikiwiki also allows users to create and edit content via
> http.  (Being perl, ikiwiki uses (modern) CGI.)  The interface is a simple
> HTML text area.
>
> I intend to allow users to alter .org files via ikiwiki's web interface
> and have ikiwiki run them through the org exporter after each save (which
> is also a VCS commit).
>
> When users start to feel limited by the textbox, I'll suggest that they
> use Emacs and grant them direct file access to the VCS that stores all the
> .org files. (git in my case.)
>
> Wish me luck. :)
>
> Incidentally, I'd find an org-mode vs. Microsoft OneNote feature
> comparison matrix useful.  Anybody got that?
>
> Cheers,
> --Dave
>
> [1] http://ikiwiki.info/
> [2] https://github.com/chrismgray/ikiwiki-org-plugin
>
>
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2502 bytes --]

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Gunnar Wolf]

42 147 dijo [Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 04:10:07AM -0400]:
> 
> 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?
> (...)

I won't talk about the people I have (not yet) converted, but about
the person who converted me: I am a long-time Emacs user (got
initiated back in 1983, being 6 or 7 years old, at the university
where my father worked, works, and where I now work as well). We spent
many Friday nights at the terminal room, he was working on some
proceedings book compilation and I was getting exposed to computers
when few had chance. So, yes, I got started on TeX and Emacs at quite
an early age. And they deformed my mind forever, it seems.

One of the factors that led me to switch to a Linux environment in the
mid-90s was that both tools I cherished (but hadn't touched in almost
ten years) were readily available. And while I did nothing with TeX
for many years (using LyX for the occasional writeup), Emacs became
very early part of my sysadmin tools, and later, my programming buddy.

Still more years passed. Between 2009 and 2011, I edited a book for
the university — «Construcción colaborativa del conocimiento»,
studying the free software / free culture movements. The process was
most interesting, but quite painful - We did the inter-author
collaboration using a Web framework, and it was up to me to convert
the final version to LaTeX and typeset it adequately. In the end, we
got quite a good result¹, which you can download if you find
interesting (written in Spanish).

Talking about the woes in the conversion, an anthropologist (and a
very good friend of mine) suggested me to take a look at org-mode. I
had previously just heard about it and dismissed it because I can
perfectly do without yet-another-todo-list-manager (which is what I
thought Org was). But after he showed me the ease with which he writes
his articles and was halfway through his doctoral thesis, intermixing
LaTeX bits, exporting to PDF and HTML, easily producing the Beamer
slides I took so much pride in having mastered... I got converted
right away.

That was just six months ago. I now write all of my articles and
presentations in Org, and am halfway through (yet another) book.

¹ http://seminario.edusol.info/

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-09, o godz. 09:42:20
Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org> napisał(a):

> I won't talk about the people I have (not yet) converted, but about
> the person who converted me: I am a long-time Emacs user (got
> initiated back in 1983, being 6 or 7 years old, at the university
> where my father worked, works, and where I now work as well). We spent
> many Friday nights at the terminal room, he was working on some
> proceedings book compilation and I was getting exposed to computers
> when few had chance. So, yes, I got started on TeX and Emacs at quite
> an early age. And they deformed my mind forever, it seems.

And I thought *I* was a geek...

Cool story, though.

Best,

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

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Marcin Borkowski]

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

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[John Hendy]

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 3:10 AM, 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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?

I work at a large company with a fairly skewed age distribution (to
the upper end). Many just won't pick it up, but I definitely get some
head turns from others. I had a manager see me taking notes at a
meeting once and we went through the process of setting it up for him
on his computer. Windows idiosyncrasies do make the process harder for
really new users as it can be frustrating to both learn a completely
new program with finger-wrenching keystrokes *and* to constantly
troubleshoot the Windows-specific aspects of why that tutorial you
just tried to follow is not reproducible.

I've been meaning to make some tutorials trying to mimic real-life
use-cases that might justify picking up Org-mode. Some ideas:
- Walk through creation of a graph-heavy presentation in both PPT and
Org-mode/Beamer
   - Present the case where you get sent a couple additional data points
   - Show the tedious nature of updating the Excel data, updating all
plots, and copying/pasting into PPT
   - Show how if you update your csv you can simply re-export the Org
document and have them included

- Report writing
   - I have to write semi-annual reports on any projects
   - Word would require a lot of formatting stuff, assuming the data
you want is copy/pastable from other documents
   - *Everything* is in Org-mode for me (daily notes, reports, and
weekly team meeting presentations)
   - Show how I can easily copy/paste from Org docs into a report
while simply changing minimal text (mostly alignment and :width args)

- Notes/todo management (separate apps vs. having everything in one place)

- Just came up today: project management. I think showing MS Project
vs. Org + taskjuggler would be quite interesting for folks. If you're
already tracking todos in Org, making a project management tool out of
it is not that big of a step.

I think tutorials like this might help the process. In a lot of
instances, the initial interest gets hung up on "Wait, *what* is the
program?" as they try to wrestle with the mono-space font looking
program running. Making the sell, at least intuitively, might be a lot
easier if one could show Org compared to real-life common alternative
methods. The comfort folks have with their other methods is often
based on historical reasons and the sunk-cost fallacy.[1] There wasn't
a lot of reasoning that went into it -- it was simply taught as "the
way" and so that's what was adopted.

My company preaches Minitab as part of their Six Sigma/LEAN training.
I didn't want to leave Org, so I literally taught myself R so I
wouldn't have to be married to Minitab :)

Oh, and to your actual question (sorry for the digression), I'm a
Mechanical Engineer working in product development. I had one intro
level Java class in college and am certainly *not* a programmer. I
went on a quest for the perfect note-taking/todo manager at various
points in my working career (a short ~5 years at this point) and
learned Emacs specifically for Org-mode! I may be more geeky than
average compared to colleagues... but if you have a piece of software
that can get someone to learn Emacs just to use it... that's a win in
my book :)


John

P.S. I was using TiddlyWiki and the modified version, TeamTasks
(http://teamtasks.tiddlyspace.com) before and it took two attempts
before I finally stuck with Org.

[1] http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/03/25/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Doug Lewan]

John,

Tutorials like the ones you mentioned would be very much appreciated.

After 5 months of learning about org-mode I am definitely still a noob. The manual looks great if you've already got a foot in the door, but for me it's been hard to know what direction to start learning in.

,Douglas
Douglas Lewan
Shubert Ticketing
(201) 489-8600 ext 224

If the majority of cooking accidents happen in the kitchen, then why don't we just cook in other rooms?


-----Original Message-----
From: emacs-orgmode-bounces+dougl=shubertticketing.com@gnu.org [mailto:emacs-orgmode-bounces+dougl=shubertticketing.com@gnu.org] On Behalf Of John Hendy
Sent: Tuesday, 2013 April 09 18:27
To: 42 147
Cc: emacs-orgmode
Subject: Re: [O] converting people to Emacs and org-mode

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 3:10 AM, 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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?

I work at a large company with a fairly skewed age distribution (to
the upper end). Many just won't pick it up, but I definitely get some
head turns from others. I had a manager see me taking notes at a
meeting once and we went through the process of setting it up for him
on his computer. Windows idiosyncrasies do make the process harder for
really new users as it can be frustrating to both learn a completely
new program with finger-wrenching keystrokes *and* to constantly
troubleshoot the Windows-specific aspects of why that tutorial you
just tried to follow is not reproducible.

I've been meaning to make some tutorials trying to mimic real-life
use-cases that might justify picking up Org-mode. Some ideas:
- Walk through creation of a graph-heavy presentation in both PPT and
Org-mode/Beamer
   - Present the case where you get sent a couple additional data points
   - Show the tedious nature of updating the Excel data, updating all
plots, and copying/pasting into PPT
   - Show how if you update your csv you can simply re-export the Org
document and have them included

- Report writing
   - I have to write semi-annual reports on any projects
   - Word would require a lot of formatting stuff, assuming the data
you want is copy/pastable from other documents
   - *Everything* is in Org-mode for me (daily notes, reports, and
weekly team meeting presentations)
   - Show how I can easily copy/paste from Org docs into a report
while simply changing minimal text (mostly alignment and :width args)

- Notes/todo management (separate apps vs. having everything in one place)

- Just came up today: project management. I think showing MS Project
vs. Org + taskjuggler would be quite interesting for folks. If you're
already tracking todos in Org, making a project management tool out of
it is not that big of a step.

I think tutorials like this might help the process. In a lot of
instances, the initial interest gets hung up on "Wait, *what* is the
program?" as they try to wrestle with the mono-space font looking
program running. Making the sell, at least intuitively, might be a lot
easier if one could show Org compared to real-life common alternative
methods. The comfort folks have with their other methods is often
based on historical reasons and the sunk-cost fallacy.[1] There wasn't
a lot of reasoning that went into it -- it was simply taught as "the
way" and so that's what was adopted.

My company preaches Minitab as part of their Six Sigma/LEAN training.
I didn't want to leave Org, so I literally taught myself R so I
wouldn't have to be married to Minitab :)

Oh, and to your actual question (sorry for the digression), I'm a
Mechanical Engineer working in product development. I had one intro
level Java class in college and am certainly *not* a programmer. I
went on a quest for the perfect note-taking/todo manager at various
points in my working career (a short ~5 years at this point) and
learned Emacs specifically for Org-mode! I may be more geeky than
average compared to colleagues... but if you have a piece of software
that can get someone to learn Emacs just to use it... that's a win in
my book :)


John

P.S. I was using TiddlyWiki and the modified version, TeamTasks
(http://teamtasks.tiddlyspace.com) before and it took two attempts
before I finally stuck with Org.

[1] http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/03/25/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Karl Voit]

* 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello mailing list,

Hi!

> The question is the title: have you been able to convert many people to
> Emacs / org-mode?

I am not quite sure how many people actually switched to
Emacs/Org-mode. However, I have seen many open mouths by showing
simply the basic (tables, babel, ...)[1].

This heavily depends on the background of the person (programmer,
manager, ...).

I recognised that I got very cool reactions on Memacs[2] which
enriches my agenda with so much great stuff. With Memacs, I am able
to tell quite exactly what happened when and I can correlate tasks
with web pages visited, phone calls done, and so forth. However, I
got the feeling that people really do want to have such an
environment (because of the advantages of its featureset) but most
of them are afraid of the set-up process and the learning curve. 
Not everybody wants (or is able) to invest time to learn
Emacs/Org-mode.

Last autumn, I had the pleasure to conduct a 12h-workshop at our
university with a bunch of very interested people. Everybody added
his/her own requirements and the feedback was quite good. I guess
that they all switched to Org-mode.

Next week, there is an event called Grazer Linuxtage[3] which is the
largest open source event in Austria. Last year, I presented
Org-mode using [1]. This year, I am planning to concentrate on
workflows[4]. I will ask the audience to tell me workflow examples
they are coping with in daily life and show them, how to accomplish
this using Org-mode (or give pointers to features I did not try by
myself). Bring your own workflow is my motto.

Opportunities like this are great to get people in touch with
Emacs/Org-mode. Two years ago, somebody shortly presented Org-mode
basics during a Python talk. This was my introduction to this great
tool :-)

  1. https://github.com/novoid/org-mode-workshop/blob/master/featureshow/org-mode-teaser.org
  2. see signature below
  3. http://linuxtage.at (German)
  4. http://glt13-programm.linuxtage.at/events/161.de.html
-- 
mail|git|SVN|photos|postings|SMS|phonecalls|RSS|CSV|XML to Org-mode:
       > get Memacs from https://github.com/novoid/Memacs <

https://github.com/novoid/extract_pdf_annotations_to_orgmode + more on github

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[42 147]

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> Not when they're your employees!

> Only half joking,

+1 for the serious half. Totalitarianism is underrated.

> this confirms that different people have wildly different usage patterns

That is absolutely true. I didn't care about org-mode until a friend showed
me his Shakespeare.org file. I pressed tab on "Shakespeare" and it was like
hearing the Master of Puppets opening riff for the first time.

I've had one successful convert of a total non-programmer. He was studying
German, and I'd watch him in Firefox with ten tabs open trying to translate
a passage of Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. So then I showed him how to split
the screen in Emacs -- German original on top, English on the bottom -- and
how to fetch definitions on the fly from a dictionary server. Got him
hooked in a second.

I agree that working someone through Windows poses unique problems. I had
to debase myself and fire up Windows for the first time in years.

However, on the issue of tutorials, I did save my entire IM logs. It might
be an interesting presentation technique -- to read a real, natural
step-by-step working through of Emacs with someone completely computer
illiterate. It took two hours to get him to map a shortcut to a particular
file and get it to work. And there is so much knowledge and intuition we
take for granted: for example, to a lot of computer illiterate people, a
find-file function is "magical." So is a .emacs. He didn't understand why
he could newline arbitrarily before inserting new code, e.g., "So wait, why
is this file just empty? How does writing stuff here do anything to Emacs?"
It was very interesting psychologically to remind oneself of this state of
mind. To most people a program is a shortcut icon on the desktop, not a
bunch of disparate files that coalesce into something like Emacs.

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Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Bastien]

Hi,

42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> writes:

> However, on the issue of tutorials, I did save my entire IM logs. It might
> be an interesting presentation technique -- to read a real, natural
> step-by-step working through of Emacs with someone completely computer
> illiterate.

I would love to read something like this!

One of my favorite Go books is "Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap
Go".  This is a dialogue between two Go players with different tastes
and styles, weaknesses and strengths.  Readers are always entertained
and learn a lot, just because the informal chatting contains so much
useful (though indirect) information on how players "reads" the game.

http://www.amazon.com/Kages-Secret-Chronicles-Handicap-Go/dp/0870403869

IM logs on learning Org might tell a lot on how users "reads" their
Emacs/Org interface.

Good idea :)

-- 
 Bastien

Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode

[Suvayu Ali]

My comment is off topic here, but couldn't help it ...

On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 07:59:08PM -0400, 42 147 wrote:
> It was very interesting psychologically to remind oneself of this state of
> mind. To most people a program is a shortcut icon on the desktop, not a
> bunch of disparate files that coalesce into something like Emacs.

There was an ad-hoc survey by some news show, BBC Click I think, which
asked people to distinguish what they understand by a web browser and a
search engine.  About half thought they were one and the same.

;)

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.