Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 27.09.2020 05:42, Richard Stallman wrote:
>    > And even a personal incentive: nobody likes to answer the same questions
>    > again and again.
>
>    > But it would have to be an official GNU initiative. Probably done by the
>    > one of the current Emacs maintainers, or some other people who still
>    > have the authority to make significant changes in Emacs.
>
> It is not useful to propose this in the abstract.  An argument about
> whether this is a desirable feature is not useful.  If you propose a
> concrete design, people can refine it through discussion,  Then maybe
> we can decide we would like it.

This subthread is not about a particular feature, but about a service 
where you have to solve users' problems (for money; one-time or a 
subscription fee), and in the course of that become more familiar with 
the usual difficulties that they encounter.

I'm not really sure it will take off given Emacs' waning popularity, but 
it sounds like something worth trying.

Here's one potential client's message.

https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/j04xxw/i_am_in_awe_of_emacs/g6pleve/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Quoting from there:

>>>

I would gladly make a monthly contribution to an "emacs accessibility" 
project

I would also gladly pay for emacs setup consultation. Magit broke when I 
changed jobs and setup emacs anew. (I had my old .emacs but I wasn't 
meticulous about noting the version of emacs I was using at the old job 
and what versions of packages I had). I love magit and contribute 
monthly to their patreon (despite the fact that I currently can't use it).

I've used emacs for over 20 years and love it. OTOH, every hour spent 
tinkering with emacs is an hour I'm not working on what I'm paid to work 
on. With my most recent job change I probably spent 1/2 a day (or more) 
getting emacs setup again. After spending that much time I probably 
won't re-attempt to fix magit (and other broken things) for another 6 
months or more.

What I want to use (and have "just work") is

    C/C++ language LSP // I currently use cscope and for C that is good 
enough. Meh on the ease of setup and having to periodically rerun cscope 
to update the symbols

    Go language LSP // I currently use go guru which is good enough

    programming lang auto-complete and highlight current symbol

    Org-mode // works great for me out of the box.

    magit!! // currently broken for me. I really miss being able to 
view annotated files with a keystroke

    gud // this works pretty darn well out of the box, even with 
golang's delve

It would be great if, I could

    get my emacs environment set up just right

    create a docker image from said environment

    move that perfectly working emacs environment with me from job to job

    easily update the docker image with changes now and then

My assessment is that this would requires too much up front work and the 
friction involved in updating the container with new changes is too high.

It is great that emacs continues to be developed with new features 
added. I want that to continue, but what I really want that is missing 
is the ability to not waste time on emacs tinkering if I'm satisfied 
with my current setup and change employers.

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