Re: Making Emacs more newbie friendly

[David Kastrup]

PT <mailshield.gg@mailnull.com> writes:

> On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:42:38 +0100, Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@glug.org> wrote:
>
>> PT <mailshield.gg@mailnull.com> writes:
>>
>>> Sigh. When some people sees how I work with Emacs they want to learn
>>> it.  The idea is to relieve the initial pain of meeting Emacs the
>>> first time, so that they don't give it up in disgust, before they get
>>> to know it better.
>>
>> at some point everyone gives up (perhaps in disgust) on something,
>> instead of getting to know it better.
>
> Exactly. My heretic idea is to rethink the whole Emacs interface
> (defaults, keybindings). Make the default Emacs very similary to
> modern CUA-based applications.  Give less reason for the newbies to
> give up in disgust.

It takes a coherent idea to be considered a heretic.  Half-baked
moping is not heretical.  CUA mode exists, and is accessible via the
"Options" menu already.  And you are living in a fantasy world if you
think that newbies would be kept from giving up just because of that.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum