Re: emacs for everything?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@barrow.com> wrote on Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:45:38
-0900:
> Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
>>Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@barrow.com> wrote on Tue, 16 Nov 2004 04:20:48
>>-0900:

>>It seems that you are an extreme "optical" worker, doing most of your
>>work with your eyes.  You _need_ everything on your sticky screens at
>>the same time.  If something isn't currently displayed, you kind of
>>forget it's there - a bit like a baby up till the age of (?) 6 months.
>>At a guess, your manual dexterity probably isn't that well developed,
>>which is why you find the mouse so attractive.  The mouse has got to be
>>about the most clunky inefficient device ever invented, at least for
>>anybody with a modicum of dexterity.

>>I'm an extreme "manual" worker, doing nearly _all_ my work with my
>>fingers and brain.  (In my spare time, I play a musical instrument.)  I
>>can only usefully see one thing at a time on a computer screen, yet I
>>retain in my brain a copy of where everything is - When using the input
>>area, for example, I rarely even notice that it's at the bottom of the
>>screen - my fingers type, my brain retainng an image of what I have
>>just typed, and my eyes stay focussed on the text I'm working with.
>>_Anything_ else on the screen is a distraction to me, even things like
>>scroll-bars.  And dialogue boxes exploding into my face are sheer
>>purgatory.  For me, Emacs on a console, with shift/control/alt arrow
>>key combinations bound to movement and scrolling commands is optimal.

>>Your mileage varies.  So does mine.

> It does appear that what is a straight jacket to me is just a snug warm
> wrapper (with blinders) to you.

By George, I think he's got it!

> You lack the ability to make use of the extra functionality, so there
> is no point in distracting you with functionality that is, for you,
> overly complex.

DING!  Somebody give the man a banana!

It is too complex for me, and you couldn't function without it.  That is
why we have Emacs working both on a straight character console and on a
crookedly complex window manager, and anything in-between.

> I would like to know how you use your fingers and brain to remember the
> _current_ time on a clock that you do not display?  (As just one very
> trivial example of how limited your described environment is in a real
> world.)

I don't - I just look up at the device hanging on the wall, or glance at
the one strapped to my left wrist.  If, for any reason, I wanted to know
my computer's idea of the time, I'd type in "date" and press the carriage
return key.  And if I really, really, really badly wanted it continuously
displayed on my console, I'd get Emacs to display it on the mode-line.
How to do this is described in the Emacs manual on the page "Optional
Mode Line", if you're interested.  I don't, though.

Questions:  Do you have the time displayed continuously on your screen?
If so, why?  Did you chose to have it there, or did your window manager
put it there by default, as it were.  What do you get out of it?

> Floyd L. Davidson

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
"Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so."  Douglas Adams