RE: Info tutorial is out of date

[Drew Adams]

    > 1. I'm *not* a mouser. Except to click links sometimes, I use keys in
    > Info (and Emacs). This is not about what I use or what you use or 27%
    > or 97% of emacs-devel use; it is about how best to teach newbies about
    > Info.

    The discussion is not entirely unlike C-n vs. <down arrow> in the Emacs
    tutorial.  What was the consensus there?

I don't know, and I don't have time to check. You check and let us know, if
it's pertinent.

    > Mousing or not seems to be a hot-button issue for those who
    > don't use a mouse. To me, it is a non-issue. I don't promote use of
    > the mouse, and I am all for recommending in the tutorial (and
    > elsewhere) that newbies learn to use keyboard commands.

    Your suggested change to that tutorial would be promoting mouse use at
    the expense of keyboard use.

Not at all. Howzat?

    You are conflating what is widespread and usual with what is good.

No, believe me, I am not. I am conflating what is widespread with what users
will know when they first come to Emacs and Info. Know whom you communicate
with. Know your pupil. Know even your enemy, if you want to look at it that
way.

    This is bad!

What is bad? Using a mouse?

    There's no innocent get-out here - not for you, not for me.

Keep your ideas about evil for the local Anti-Mouse League meetings. I don't
see what that has to offer here. I like rodents of all sorts, as long as
they don't eat all the corn and rice.

    >     Drew, you've hit a raw nerve.  Whether one uses a mouse
    >     extensively or not is a highly emotional thing,

Not to me it's not, BTW. I could not care less about whether someone uses a
mouse extensively or not. Just doesn't excite me either way. Sorry.

    >     Your original post was a rant, and you used lots of loaded
    >     words and phrases (like "shortcut").  You shouldn't be too
    >     surprised at getting flamed a little bit.

    > My original post was not at all a rant; the fact that you see
    > it that way says something about your hot button.

    Er, didn't you yourself describe your original post as a rant?  ;-)

You're right, but I meant that I was ranting when I expressed disappointment
with Info, criticizing it left and right.

I was not ranting about my proposed changes - far from it. And I was not
ranting for or against the use of a mouse. Never, no how.

    > Key bindings *are* shortcuts - what's wrong with that? 1) They are
    > commonly called "keyboard shortcuts" by many people. 2) They are
    > shorter (quicker) to use than clicking menus and links with a mouse -
    > don't you agree? They are shorter (quicker) than using `M-x' - don't
    > you agree? What is it about "shortcut" that sets you off?

    It's one of those sort of words/phrases so beloved of
    journalists/salesmen/politicians that can be used to denigrate
    something, yet the j/s/p, when called on it, can convincingly
    pretend it was totally innocent and factual, as you have done
    in the preceding paragraph.

Like "paragraph"? That's one of those so-called words/phrases so beloved of
evil-doers that can be used to denigrate us flat-earthers. Also,
"convincingly" - gotta hate that one too.

Huh? Are you putting me on, Alan? What is the evil conspiracy behind the
phrase "keyboard shortcut" or the word "shortcut"? Is it because it has
"short" in it? I really don't get it. Please believe me that I am not
pretending anything, innocent and factual or otherwise. What is sinister
about "shortcut"?

    A bit like you can denigrate Lisp by calling it a "traditional"
    language...

That's your fantasy, not mine. Please don't bring in everything under the
moon, here. No one is putting down Lisp or shortcuts (err... key bindings).
Get a hold of yourself, please.

    In English, "shortcut" usually carries connotations of
    something naughty.

Not in my English, it doesn't. Maybe that's the problem. Not in American
English (to my knowledge); it does not. As with any word, it *can* carry a
connotation of naughtiness, depending on the context.

BTW, if it did carry a connotation of naughtiness, then I'd say we should
adopt it immediately, and sprinkle it liberally all over the Emacs docs and
UI. *That* would settle the shortcut vs mouse war once and for all, in your
favor. Naughtiness always wins, especially with the young'ns. Tell them the
mouse is the "proper" and "clean" way to go, and everyone will become a
keyboard convert overnight.

    Like "the boys took a shortcut across the farmer's field" or "the
    engineers, being pressed for time, took shortcuts in the maintenance
    schedule, thus causing the aeroplane to crash".

You are really stretching things. You can take a shortcut doing anything; it
can lead to good and improvement or bad and disaster. Tell a Frenchman that
he took a shortcut to get from Paris to the ski slopes and he'll beam with
pride as a "bison fute" (the sole bison clever enough to leave the herd and
find a shorter way 'round).

I think you're way off base, here, Alan, unless "shortcut" has some special
meaning in your neck of the woods. It certainly does not everywhere I've
ever set my feet - or else I've been oblivious to the secret connotation all
these years.

Yes, "The building contractor took shortcuts with the welds, and thus
compromised safety and quality" is a sentence that uses "shortcut" as a bad
thing. But that's not the only way to use it.

    Thus when you call a key sequence a "shortcut", you're transmitting
    the subliminal message "this is somehow illegitimate and the
    mouse action is the canonical correct way to invoke the function".

Nonsense! You're not serious, are you? This is a joke, right?

    I suspect this was deliberate, introduced by a genius of a wordsmith
    around the time that mice were just catching on, in the early 1980s.

And I suspect a touch of paranoia - no offense. Unless this is all just a
big hoax - that would be a good one on me! A really good one!

    What's wrong with the neutral term "key sequence"?

Nothing. Nothing wrong with "key binding" either.

And nothing wrong with communicating with those misled millions who
(shudder!) mistakenly think the right term is "keyboard shortcut".

I proposed adding a jargon glossary to the manual long ago, which was done,
I believe. I pointed out that "yank" means (roughly) "paste", and so on. I
didn't propose replacing "yank" by "paste", I proposed only pointing out to
newbies that Emacs jargon used "yank" for what they might know as "paste".
It's about bridging the gap between what people know and what you want them
to know.

BTW, think how derogatory "yank" is to us Yanks, Alan. How would you like it
if we called it "britting" or "scotting" or "krauting"? Well, think how us
Yanks feel when you call it "yanking". Unacceptable insensitivity.

And "yank" can mean to hang a man, too. Now that I think of it, I suspect
that "yank" was introduced intentionally to insult yankees, especially those
who have a past relative who was unfairly hung.

Not to mention the naughty connotation of "yanking" on you-know-what and the
assonant term "wanking". Yes, there is veritably nasty stuff underneath,
when you scratch the surface of the Emacs terminology. There's a PhD
dissertation on this waiting for someone who is interested in investigating
further.

And what about "killing" a buffer or text? What kind of subliminal message
was RMS trying to push on our innocent youth? How many millions have already
been corrupted by him and his words that kill? No wonder there are more and
more gangs, drugs, and guns on the streets. Corrupter of youth! Prepare the
hemlock now!

    >     I think there are a lot more pure keyboard users out
    >     there than you do.

    > Who knows? I tried to offer some objective info - do you have
    > something to add to that?

    What you quoted missed the point.  Sure 99.9999% of computers are
    equipped with mice, and they get used day in day out.

OK, what *is* the point?

*My* point about all this mice-and-keyboard nonsense is that if 99.9999% of
users who might become interested in using Info are already used to using a
mouse, then let's accomodate them. *If* we have a battle against mice (and I
don't), then let's take that battle out of the Info tutorial.

    Who doesn't fire
    up Firefox (or that ghastly proprietary program it's steadily
    superseding) every day and mouse it?  Even I do,

I'm quite ashamed of you, Alan, really. You know there are ways around that,
don't you. What good excuse do you have? What about Emacs as a Web browser?
What about Lynx? Do you sleep well at night after an evening of your filthy,
mousey scum surfing? For shame!

Father, forgive him, for he has  m o u s e d.

BTW, how do you fool Emacs into thinking you don't have a mouse, so it
doesn't feel ashamed of you? Do you unplug mousey when you use Emacs? Oh,
there's an option for that? Pretty sneaky. (Trying to pretend to me that you
didn't know what a mouse was... hah!)

    so I'd get included amongst habitual mouse users in that survey.
    A more pertinent question would be "do you regularly use an
    application without recourse to the mouse?"

OK. How many do you think would answer "yes" to your "more pertinent"
question? 0.0001%? 1%? 10%? Does it matter to you? Your mind's made up
already, isn't it? What if it were only 0.0000000001% who regularly use an
app without mouse? Would that persuade you? Be honest. I don't think so.

    >     I also think that not encouraging frivolous mouse use is a Good
    >     Thing.

    > I'm not encouraging mouse use, "frivolous" or otherwise. I proposed
    > that we get to the heart of the teaching matter in Info right away,
    > using the obvious tools available that everyone knows how to use:
    > links and buttons.
    > I didn't weigh in on the keyboard vs mouse issue at all -
    > I didn't even know there was such an issue - it's your hot button, not
    > mine. I mentioned mouse-usage statistics in my followup to your rant
    > because I think it's a mistake to orient the entire Info tutorial to
    > the use patterns of a tiny minority.

    We're back in C-n vs. <down arrow> territory now.  You ARE
    weighing in on the mouse vs. keyboard issue.  You are proposing
    telling people to use mouse clicks instead of key sequences,

I don't think so. When did you hear me say that we should tell people to use
the mouse, rather than keyboard? On the contrary, I've said repeatedly that
we can recommend that they use the  s h o r t c u t s.

I've said more than once that using the mouse to navigate is *not* (NOT,
_NOT_, *NOT*) something that needs to be taught. No one should ever waste
time trying to teach people to navigate with a mouse - never. There - happy?
I've said it again.

    and have opined that those key
    sequences are incidental rather than essential.

No. *Teaching* those key sequences is incidental to learning about *Info*.
Please read all the words; the meaning suffers, otherwise.

    I disagree with you here - it seems to me like telling a newbie
    musician not to bother learning to
    play scales, just to go directly to the music, the important stuff.

You disagree with yourself here, because you've misunderstood what I said.

    I have experience of telling ordinary computer users about key
    sequences: "You know, you can type alt-f s to save the file rather than
    grasping for the mouse.", and they typically 'phone me up a day or
    two later with "Alan, thank you!  It's SO MUCH easier that way!".

I support you in that. Good job. I've done that too. Keep it up.

    > I don't see the point in making the first half of the Info tutorial a
    > battle for keyboardism against creeping mousism. Get the new users to
    > the info on Info right away. Bring them to keyboard heaven afterward.

    The sooner you start learning to play scales, the sooner you can play
    Beethoven half decently.

    > Perhaps we can discuss the details - of disagreement,
    > for example - of the main points.

    I don't disagree with your other main points.  "Me too!".