Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Ergus]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2020 at 03:59:53PM +0200, Philip K. wrote:
> James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > a la Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
>
> I'm not familiar with the book, but from from [0]
>
> > The book's premise is that a good software program or web site should
> > let users accomplish their intended tasks as easily and directly as
> > possible.
>
> I guess I agree, but it seems to be a truism. Nobody wants to make
> software intentionally unusable, it's hard to imagine that people would
> still be using Emacs after all this time if that were the case.
>
> The question I see is should it be "Don't make me think" or "Don't make
> me learn". I get the first one, but you limit yourself to what you
> already know, if you want everything to already be familiar.
IMO it is indeed a mixture. A point in the middle that in emacs never
(or very rarely) reaches and agreement in favor of new users. At the end
someone always has to learn something either the old or new users...

On one side Emacs is extremely powerful and complex so it should be
expected some differences with other software, at the end every program
is at some point different to the others specially for the complex
tasks. In that case it makes sense that the new user have to learn how
to proceed.

BUT, on the other hand, it is true that Emacs makes some simple things
more complex/weird and keep them like that just because "it is the emacs
way" or "not to bother old users" or "we shouldn't do that just because
others do" or "our way is better just 90% more complex because it covers
this very weird and infrequent use case".

It is like a language evolution; with 1 or 2 differences it is fine; but
after many years with that policy the rest of the world evolves and only
the ancient people in the city will know your language while the younger
only learn it if they are forced to or have not choice.

Many things in emacs are indeed different because they were before; even
before the computer boom in the 90s; but then after the years everyone
adopted a different "standard" (due to Windows, Office, or even gnome
and KDE) and somehow we decided not to follow them. Again with one or
two details it is fine; but after some years... the differences pilled
up.

IMO it makes sense that a user reads a manual to know how to record a
macro, or replace all occurrences of a regex, or configure completions,
autopair, send email... But it is crazy (and pointless to discuss in
this mailing list) that a user has to learn how to copy and paste from
the keyboard or try to understand why there is not a right click panel
with the basic-common options, or why shift+click doesn't behave as it
does everywhere else...



> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
>
>         Philip K.