Re: Implicit assumptions in the latest discussions

[Emanuel Berg]

Daniele Nicolodi wrote:

> 2. Users are not drawn to try Emacs because what
>    Emacs is and for his reputation, but because
>    they expect Emacs to be like other editors.
>
> I think that who chooses Emacs, does so because of
> what Emacs is and what it has been in its long
> history, not because they expect something
> different. [...]

People really "expect" the way you describe?

I can only tell my experience.

I opened Emacs. The font lock, or syntax highlighting
as I'd call it at that point, looked cool.

I wanted to change a bunch of stuff, like
I always do. But unlike other software, with
a rudimentary config file - which is already awesome,
at that point - see my mpv stuff [1] - not that
I used mpv back then, if it was even around - ANYWAY
- I realized that Emacs didn't provide me with just
an .rc file where I could set a bunch of options that
it would parse, no, I was actually _programming_,
and in Lisp, which I considered cool (and still do).
The step from `setq's to `defun's, I don't know when
that happened, probably right away. I realized this
whole thing was an awesome window for my own
creativity. I didn't expect anything but realized
it instantly.

I've always been obsessed by tools: text editor or
revolving hole punch, it doesn't matter, I modify
them and spend time with them like other people do
their CD collections or whatever. (People don't
collect CDs anymore.)

I don't know what features or what is different with
modern editors or where they have the huge advantage.
What I saw before Emacs were idle, nano, notepad++,
Eclipse, Visual Studio, and a couple of others;
either they were super-simple (much, much too simple)
or they had the GUI/menu based style which I pretty
much came to programming because I _didn't_ like.

So if I expected anything, which I doubt,
I absolutely did not expect Emacs to be anything like
that. In fact, the more it _wasn't_ like that, the
more I'd like it...

Maybe today there are fundamentally different
editors, different compared to nano (simple), Emacs
(Emacs), and Eclipse (GUI/menu), and every other
editor I know. Yes, it would be interesting to have
a look at them...

But, instead of making Emacs more like them in
general, let's hear it, make a list of their three
killer features that they have, and we don't. We take
it from there :)


[1] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/mpv/mpv.conf
    https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/mpv/input.conf

    BTW mpv is perhaps a poor example here because it
    is also extendible, with Lua.

-- 
underground experts united
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