RE: Emacs learning curve

[Drew Adams]

> For a long period of the PC era, Emacs was the king of the 
> text editors for technical users.

Really?  Don't let a vi user hear you claim that.  In my (anecdotal) experience,
even in software research environments the number of vi users has at least
equalled that of Emacs users.  And in software development I've seen even more
vi use than in research.  I still do.

Has Emacs ever been the "king" in terms of numbers of technical users (numbers
of users seeming to be the measure you favor)?  I seriously doubt it.

>From http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1999/unix_editor.html:

"Despite emacs' higher profile as a free software poster child, I think more
people actually use vi than emacs.  We sell more copies of our vi book than of
our emacs book -- almost twice as many each year.  This could be because emacs
has a free manual that is distributed with it.  But I saw a matching statistic
at Linux Expo, where O'Reilly sponsors a vi vs. emacs paintball game each year.
I happened to check the signup list, and noticed that there were about twice as
many people signed up for the vi team as for the emacs team.  (Maybe they just
like the vi t-shirt -- the team "uniform" -- more than the emacs t-shirt, but I
don't think so.)"

The paragraph before that one, BTW, should also provide some food for thought,
and is particularly germain to the topic ("Emacs learning curve"):

"Once you learn vi's admittedly unintuitive style, it is remarkably easy to use
and tremendously powerful.  Like a lot of things about UNIX, it only *seems*
difficult.  After a small barrier to entry, it is orders of magnitude more
powerful and easy to use than commercial word processors.  (But that's true of
emacs as well!)"

The point is not `vi vs Emacs', of course.  It is that Emacs (likewise vi) was
never "king", in terms of numbers of users.  And so what?  Emacs is not for
everyone, not even for every technical user.  Different people prefer different
tools in different contexts at different times for different jobs.  There are no
kings.

Behind or ahead, ahead or behind...  It's _not_ a popularity contest.  Dunno why
this popularity thing keeps coming up here (and on help-gnu-emacs) from time to
time.

Maybe it has to do with youth and a crying need to belong, to feel popular, to
have the coolest gadget or the latest, most wannahave toy.  Dunno.  ("Oh the
shame of it - did you see what he uses as his editor?  Emacs!  LOL!")

Totally beside the point, in any case.  It's not important for Emacs to be _the
most popular_.  It's important for Emacs to be useful and become even more
useful.

A redwood tree is not the most common plant in California.  But it has its
place.  It does some things exceedingly well.  Of course, some people call it a
living fossil...  (With a little luck and a little global warming, redwoods
might just make a big comeback - they once grew planet-wide.)

> Nowadays Emacs lacks behind on productivity features

Haven't we all agreed that Emacs could be improved by adding some of those
productivity features?  And that is so even though we have not agreed that Emacs
is "behind" generally.  But just what are the "productivity features" that we
might like to add to Emacs?

There you go again, slip-sliding from (1) "productivity features", which no one
argues against and with some Eclipse features serving as oft-cited examples, to
(2) the idea that the Emacs default key bindings need to be those that a newbie
is already used to in other apps.

No, you didn't actually state #2 in that sentence, but that's what this is
about, isn't it?  That's where the disagreement and controversy lies.  A tempest
in a teapot.  Absolutely no one has spoken against adding any "productivity
features" - real, useful features that help you get things done.

You put forth a broad generality about Emacs lacking "productivity features" as
support for the proposition that CUA bindings etc. should be used.  Sheesh.

> stay alive as living fossils just because the efforts of
> some enthusiasts.

Not to worry.  Emacs will be digging up your and my remains and chuckling about
them, long, long after we - enthusiasts or not - have turned from living fossils
to dead ones.

The fact that you think that Emacs is "going the way of...a living fossil" shows
how far out into the ozone you've wandered.  Or maybe you don't really think
that but you hope that saying it will scare folks into accepting the particular
changes you have in mind?  Dunno - you tell me.

> What I'm trying to convey here is that Emacs can be again a top-notch
> programming environment, second to none, the first choice for every
> hacker.

Amen.  Hallelujah.  We all agree.  Emacs has that potential.  We do not agree
that what is lacking is to make CUA mode etc. the default.  That's all.

> The first requisite for that is to stop being
> self-complacent. And stop looking down on others too.

No one is complacent.  No one is looking down on anyone else.  Some seem to be
pretending to speak for noobs.  That is presumptuous, I agree, but even those
misleading and misguided souls are likely not looking down on anyone.

Just because some people disagree with the proposition that Emacs default key
bindings MUST CHANGE NOW OR ELSE! is no reason to attack those people as being
complacent or condescending.

Everyone here wants to improve Emacs.  No one thinks it should stand dead still.
The questions that are debated and need to be debated have to do with _which_
changes to make, not whether all change is bad.

The devil is in the details.  It happens, IMHO, that those most familiar with
Emacs have the most respect for the existing design logic, UI included.  That's
natural.

Someone less familiar with the design and the history (past analysis and debate
etc.) can easily suppose that this or that aspect is arbitrary or a historical
artifact, legacy cruft that might as well be upended and rooted out.  Dig up
that tangled old growth and plant the wonder seeds that everyone else has so
much success with.

Are there some weeds in the garden?  No doubt.  But the garden is sound and
healthy, and based on a good plan.  Show us a plant you think is a weed; show us
a replacement seed so we can argue about the pros and cons.  But please don't
just cry that the sky is falling! the garden is dying! and no one is interested
in it anymore! except a few old caretakers.

Respecting the existing design because of familiarity with its logic is not the
same thing as being stubbornly unwilling to improve Emacs.  Not agreeing that
some particular change you propose is what's needed is not the same as refusing
change itself.