Re: Changes for emacs 28

[tomas]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 11:41:45AM +0300, Juri Linkov wrote:
> >> > I think that this is the case, most programmes seem to use the
> >> > "Hamburger Menu"[0] instead of a transitional top-menu. I'm not sure
> >> > what the reason for this change was, but I have a hunch one of the
> >> > motivating reasons was the attempt to merge applications and the window
> >> > frames
> 
> If the menu-bar isn't displayed then we could display the Hamburger icon
> in the tool-bar, and clicking on it will pop-up the menu with items from
> the menu-bar, so users won't need to display both menu-bar and tool-bar.
> 
> > Me? I'd say the Hamburger menu is the latest fad, to be taken over
> > next year by the Sushi menu
> 
> Unlike the Hamburger menu that has three sticks,
> the Sushi menu icon should have two chopsticks.

Perhaps with something mushy and fishy in-between, to differentiate
it from the spring-roll menu.

On a more serious note, what I wanted to point out is that there
are many forces shaping what is currently perceived as "usage
friendly". Some of them stem from ergonomy research (which, of
course, focuses on some population already exposed to software
"out there", so it's part of a feedback loop), some of it stems
from some manufacturer's attempt to differentiate itself, to
grow sales, some of it, even, from a strategy of appealing to
potential decision takers (who are /not/ those who have to use
the sofware later).

As we focus on user freedom here, not all those forces are our
friends. Some are, some are not.

The table TEC posted (Message-ID: <87o8maj1kh.fsf@gmail.com>)
is very interesting. Do you think the popularity of vscode
and vs (both at the  list's top) stems from the colours? Or
rather from the fact that there is an incredibly rich behemoth
behind both of them and that many developers are working,
directly or indirectly for it? Or from some mixture of both?

Microsoft has a long record of trying to suck in users into
their dependency from them. It's their business model.

The fact that Microsoft put 7 billions on the table to
acquire Github should be telling, in itself. A platform
which transforms Git's inherently decentralised model into
a centralised service (when I worked for some big company,
developers there saw Github as a synonym for git, and that
was before the acquisition).

Exchange Microsoft for any other company whose revenue comes
from dependent users, there are many.

The latter runs counter our core principles, I think.

I'm not arguing that Emacs shoud make it hard for people coming
from vscode, on the contrary. But the argument "it's more popular,
so it must be better" is too naive, I think.

Cheers
 - t

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