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Re: Can anybody tell me how to send HTML-format mail in gnus


From: Nikolaj Schumacher
Subject: Re: Can anybody tell me how to send HTML-format mail in gnus
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:20:25 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.2.50 (darwin)

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

>> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:31:45 +0200
>> From: "Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>
>> CC: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>> 
>> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> >> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:49:21 +0200
>> >> From: "Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>
>> >> CC: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>> >>
>> >> Emacs should be as easy to learn as possible - without loosing power of 
>> >> course.
>> > 
>> > That's impossible.  Power and ease of use are mutually contradictory.
>> 
>> I think rather they are orthogonal.

It's neither of these extremes.  They affect each other.  An object's
functionality has generally a negative effect on it's ease of use, and
vice-versa.  But that doesn't mean you can't chose the easier way to
implement something without sacrificing power.

>> What you have to learn is not directly related to the power. It can be, 
>> but it is not necessarily so. You can (sometimes) write a command very 
>> carefully and make it easier for the users - without giving them less power.
>
> Power means flexibility.  Flexibility means many different buttons and
> switches, which cannot be easy.

That's not an absolute.  Have you tried programming an electric watch
that has only two buttons?  There are several press and release patterns
involved, and it's not at all easy.  A radio watch with several nicely
labeled buttons (set, +, -, done) is a lot easier to use, and in no way
less powerful.  So ease of use doesn't _contradict_ functionality.

Now, of course you can't keep on adding features without making it
harder to use.  So They aren't _orthogonal_.


regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher




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