RE: Casting as wide a net as possible (was: First draft of the Emacs website)

[Drew Adams]

FWIW, I don't disagree with much of what you said, John. I, for one, never suggested that "if a would be user does not drink the Lisp CoolAid then (s)he is not welcome to use our editor".

 

I also did not suggest that we pit Lisp against other languages with arguments about superiority. (RMS suggested that, to some degree.)

 

What I suggested it that Emacs is particularly about customizing, and Lisp, yes, is a part of that. And it is a part not because one has to code Lisp to customize Emacs (that's false), but because one can customize Emacs more powerfully and more flexibly using Lisp.

 

I said that I think that we should mention what some important Lisp features offer to Emacs - essential features that make Emacs what it is.

 

I think your post indicates a somewhat black-&-white, and limiting, view of both the newbies we should be welcoming and how we should do so.

 

My only point is that Lisp features really do make Emacs what it is. To point out what Emacs is necessarily means pointing out some of those features (IMO).

 

This does not imply a language war or an electric kool-aid acid test. Nor does it imply that potential users who might never be interested in some of those features will be, or should be, excluded or turned off. Far from it.

 

I would hope that our site would be not just a self-indulgent
love fest, a litany of all the things we - the advanced, deeply
committed users - love about Emacs....
Do you seriously want to adopt the stance that if a would be user
does not drink the Lisp CoolAid then (s)he is not welcome to use
our editor?  Or at least (s)he has to get past our proselytizing?

A newbie following up a suggestion that (s)he checkout an editor
called Emacs should not be assailed by a religious pitch about how
(s)he should lust to use Emacs because its extension language is
superior to that used in other editors. 

...

For those who are interested (eg the 13 year old Drew postulated)
there are many easily discovered resources on the web describing
Emacs, Lisp, eLisp, etc.  We could easily include on our site a
curated list of links to the best of such resources.  If we feel
that there does not yet exist a sufficiently effusive description
of (e)Lisp we can write one and link to it.