[emacs-wiki-discuss] Re: Before I start on the learning curve, is planner mode for me?

[Paul Lussier]

Jim Ottaway <address@hidden> writes:

> By the way, I recently saw this diagram of the learning curves for
> various editors:
>
> http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060302.html

I saw that too. At first, I took it as the joke I'm sure it was meant
to be (curious how the emacs curve closely resembles the Debian logo
:) But the more I thought about it, the more I think it actually
makes sense.

With vi, pico, and notepad, you level off after a while.  At somepoint
you do actually know all there is to know, and no matter how much time
you spend using that editor, you never get anything more out of it.

With emacs, you have a steep learning curve for getting to an advanced
level, and that requires some effort and time be expended. In other
words, it *costs* you something, and you actually feel some pain from
those costs.  But aat a certain point, you begin to reap rewards
beyond anything you ever imagined possible to the point where not only
to you not expend time and energy, but you actually get some returned
to you...

I just realized the other day that there's a function called
mml-secure-message-encrypt-pgpmime, which signs and encrypts an
e-mail, there isn't one which *just* encrypts it.  If I'm encrypting
the e-mail, I don't really need to sign it, and for some reason using
my key to sign mail is broken.  I don't really care about fixing it.
But it was costing me time and effort every time I wanted to send an
e-mail to make sure it didn't get signed, only encrypted.

I have a function which now *just* encrypts my e-mail for me.  The
cost of 5 minutes to write the elisp has saved me the countless
minutes it was previously taking to un-sign the mail before it got
sent, plus it saved me however long it will take to go down the gpg
rat-hole to fix the real problem.  To me, *that's* ROI :)

-- 

Seeya,
Paul