Re: In defense of Customize [was: Trying to right-align my window on startup]

[Emanuel Berg]

Christoph Wedler <christoph.wedler@sap.com> writes:

> Just to put the rest of this posting into context:
> neither do I.  Everybody who has written LaTeX
> documents knows that Per has done an excellent job
> with AucTeX - just one example...

Not "everybody who has written LaTeX documents" know
that (but I don't contradict you as for the quality of
AUCTeX). But of course, you know there is a plain LaTeX
mode (latex-mode), and AUCTeX must be installed
explicitly (except for XEmacs).

> I do not hate Customize

I hope so :)

> 1. Exploring customization options.
>
> There were too many customization option to grasp
> (I'm not against having many options!), and one could
> not easily grasp the interdependence between
> different options.

I don't think Customize is that good for that. It is
just too much. You get lost in the jungle. To explore
Emacs capabilities and options in general, I recommend
a good (physical) *book*. Why not "Learning GNU Emacs"
by O'Reilly? [The only blunder of that book is that
they don't mention either RMAIL or Gnus, because now
"there are more modern clients for that" (i.e., outside
the Emacs world - pseudo-quote, by the way) - which is
nonsense - it doesn't matter how "modern" anything is,
what matters is that you type emails, and you type in
Emacs, and you are active in Emacs, and you write
emails about what you do.]

> They had (and have - that is the point!) a problem
> with having to define a function/form which contains
> the necessary customizations and having to add this
> to some hook, provide it to eval-after-load, or ...

That can be a problem but I don't see how that is
easier with Customize. What should be done, rather, is
that those things should be "parameterized" so you
actually *can* get that with `setq' Lisp alone.

>  3. Re-using customization (parts) of other Emacs users
> (or own on other machine)

That will always be frustrating so I think the solution
to that problem is: don't do it. To have one computer
at work, one at home, and one gadget in between, and to
run Emacs on all, and expect everything to be the same
- why do that *at all*? Why not have the same computer
at work, as at home? Why have several computers at all?
Why not have *one* computer, which behaves the way you
want it to, and when you are not there, you do
different things? If you *must* use different computers
all over, and you have accepted that, why not accept
that they *are* different, and thus the UX as well?

> 3. Positive: custom-themes could be a step in the
> right direction

Themes can be a solution to get a quick start but
equally we should encourage people to be able to
*change* what they don't like. Just like as changing
something in Linux should never equal "install another
distribution", we should instill the notion that
everything can be changed, and that without any outside
interference.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573