Re: Successfully merged projects

[John Swensen]

On Apr 12, 2011, at 10:22 AM, John W. Eaton wrote:

> On 12-Apr-2011, Richard Crozier wrote:
> 
> | It is this kind of assumption which is the one of the reasons you think
> | emacs is so simple, and I think it's so hard.
> 
> I don't see it that way.  I was aware that I was using jargon, but
> decided that it would be insulting to tell you that the notation meant
> a control character, or how to type a control character, based on the
> fact that you seemed to have had some familiarity with trying Emacs in
> the past.
> 
> | GNU emacs 21.4.1 is the version most easily available to me.
> 
> OK, that is pretty old by now.  I'm most interested in trying to
> understand whether it is really difficult to start using Emacs for
> simple tasks using the current Emacs, not a version that is about a
> decade old now (seriously, even though 21.4 was released in 2005, the
> 21.x release series started in 2001).
> 
> | I have actually
> | got it working when connecting from a different machine, but now another
> | example of difficulty. I went to the help menu and clicked on 'show emacs
> | version', and the info was displayed at the bottom. I wanted to use the info
> | in this reply, so I thought I'd just copy and paste it, but clicking on the
> | area where it appeared made the info disappear and I get the message
> | 'Minibuffer window is not active'. This is not intuitive behaviour.
> 
> I agree that is not helpful.  When I try this with Emacs 23, it opens
> up the *Messages* buffer showing the text from the minibuffer, from
> which I can cut and paste.  So that problem has apparently been fixed.
> It is still somewhat confusing in that you can't cut and pasted
> directly from the minibuffer, but at least it doesn't give a cryptic
> error message.
> 
> | But I don't just want to just enter text, I'm only learning to use it so I
> | can use the Octave features! 
> | 
> | Another example, I choose 'open file' from the menu, I don't get a directory
> | browser or anything like that,
> 
> Again, you are using a version that is very old now.  When I use the
> open file button with Emacs 23 on my system, I get the usual gtk/gnome
> file browser widget.
> 
> | I get a message saying 'find file: ~/' at the
> | bottom. Now what should I do. Can I just type the file name and emacs will
> | magically find the file in my system, or must I know by heart the directory
> | location of the file? Can I navigate to a directory by typing some commands
> | or something? I haven't a clue.
> 
> You have some familiarity with Unix systems, too, right?  So you
> probably know what a filename looks like and that ~/ represents your
> home directory?  Yes, you can just enter the filename.  TAB completion
> works, so it is relatively quick to find files this way.  But yes, I
> do understand the problem that if you have never seen a filename
> written out before with slashes used to separate directory names, this
> will be confusing.
> 
> | Another example, when I launch emacs I get the welcome screen with the logo.
> | I click on this and get the next screen where there's a message:
> | 
> | ;;This buffer is for notes...  blah blah
> | 
> | I highlight the text to copy into this reply and right click to copy,
> | assuming I'll get a context menu with an option to copy. I have to do this
> | because I already know neither C-c or SHIFT+CTRL+c will copy as the key
> | bindings are different. There is no context menu, so I give up. Oh, and what
> | is a buffer? Of course I now know what a buffer is (I think), but seriously,
> | does it have to be this hard?
> 
> The behavior is much different for Emacs 23.  The default startup
> screen on my system looks similar to this:
> 
>  http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/images/splash.png
> 
> though not the same since that image appears to be for a more recent
> development version, but it is still quite similar.  Clicking on the
> startup screen doesn't take me somewhere else unless I click on an
> underlined word that functions like a link in a typical web browser.
> 
> | I use texniccentre for LaTeX, the matlab editor for m files, Visual Studio
> | Express editions for windows .NET projects and debugging C++ mex files, I'm
> | using the Qt Editor for QtOctave. For everything else I use ConTEXT. On
> | Linux I usually use gedit.
> 
> Do these all have interfaces that are the same, or do you have to
> remember which editor you are using in order to do the right thing?
> Or are the "close enough" and you just have to remember the
> differences, and you can do that because you are used to it, whereas I
> would be infinitely frustrated by the (I'm guessing, many) little
> inconsistencies?  Or does it not matter because you do everything with
> the mouse by clicking menu items and icons?
> 
> | I didn't need any time to learn to use these tools, they were intuitive to
> | use!
> 
> For you!
> 
> | There was no major investment in just getting started. Sure, this may
> | be because of my previous experience
> 
> I'm sure it is because of previous experience.  Many of the little
> icons on the typical Windows toolbar are completely meaningless to me.
> 
> | it's good to be able to get started
> | without having to know any commands whatsoever.
> 
> And I think it is entirely possible to do that with current Emacs on a
> modern system.
> 
> | I am sure I could replace all these editors with emacs, if I could just
> | figure out how to open a file!
> 
> With modern Emacs, you can use the file browser.  Or you can use
> 
>  C-x f
> 
> or
> 
>  M-x find-file
> 
> I think the first step in having a better experience with Emacs would
> be to get the current version.
> 
> In any case, I'm sure that everyone is tired of this sub thread by
> now.  But really, I am interested in knowing how we can make things
> easier to use.  It is surely not perfect, but I think the current
> Emacs mostly does a good job with that.
> 
> jwe

I use Emacs and like Emacs (or Aquamacs to be specific).  I think the confusion 
and difference in opinion lies in the fact that *most* people who start using 
Matlab or Octave have had most of their lifetime of computer training on a 
Windows machine.  This is probably due to the fact that something like 90% of 
all desktop machines in the world still run Windows.  Most peoples' experience 
has also been with a word processor on Windows.  Word processors on Windows 
(and applications in general) have things like copy, paste, open file, etc. 
that are pretty standard across all applications.  When someone is beginning to 
take up a new program to do their work (say an engineering freshman in college 
or a seasoned biologist who want to start using Matlab/Octave for their 
statistical computation rather than some other software), I think they often 
want to just get stuff done.  They want something that looks "normal" and feels 
"normal".  "Normal" to most people is word processing behavior on Windows.  I 
am positive that once people learn Matlab/Octave they start to find ways to be 
more productive, but initially they just want to get science/engineering done.  
After even a few weeks of using Emacs my first time, I felt I had been 
retrained in how to do all my common editing tasks in the Emacs-way, but some 
people don't have time or emotional energy to learn two things at once.  Oft 
times there are other extenuating circumstances that make it prohibitive (a 
paper or grant deadline, for example).

John