The Modernization of Emacs

[Andreas Eder]

Hi Twisted,

Twisted> * The operating system where you can do powerful stuff with a command
Twisted> line and a script or two, but can also get by without either. (Windows
Twisted> fails the former. Linux fails the latter.)
Twisted> * For that matter, the operating system whose GUI takes the concept
Twisted> behind OLE to its logical conclusion, and lets the user separately
Twisted> choose and configure their text editing, this-editing, that-editing,
Twisted> whosit-viewing, and the like components, and those components are used
Twisted> in building more complex applications. All the alternatives would of
Twisted> course adhere to a common interface for a particular sort of
Twisted> component, of course. (An OO language like Java lends itself to this,
Twisted> what with interfaces and inheritance and dynamic
Twisted> class loading!)

Have a look at Genera, the OS of the Lisp Machines. It offers all
that and much more. Unfortunately it is almost non existent
nowadays.

'Andreas

 

[Robert Uhl]

Really? None of this happens if you just do the straightforward file-
open command, which should obviously at least provide a navigable
directory tree, but definitely does not.

The first does. Really, it does. Fire up emacs (which you've never
done before) and type C-x C-f. You will be presented with a prompt
something like 'Find file: ~/'; hit tab once; you'll see the message
'[Complete, but not unique]'; hit tab again and you will be presented a
list of all files in that directory.

Tab completion is a poor cousin to a real directory tree navigator, as
I'm sure most would agree.

I wouldn't. There are several directory navigators installed on this
machine, but I never use anything more than bash's tab completion.

If you like 'em, though, just select File:Visit New File. It gives you
a platform-default (gtk+, for me) file selector.

Even if it will show all matches to a partial name instead of none,
it's the textual equivalent of navigating a directory tree made into
menus instead of provided by a proper folder view window. Windows
users unfortunately have the experience regularly: the notorious Start
menu. You have to expand submenus to find stuff, and you can't leave
it idling to do something somewhere else and come back to it because
it's a menu.

Nope, because of the way emacs works you can stop what you're doing, do
something else and come back to the minibuffer. As an example, while I
was typing the first paragraph, I had find-file running in the
minibuffer (I was checking for the exact prompts and phrases used).

I can only imagine the pain of trying to navigate an equivalent way in
an 80x25 box of text information.

Fortunately, folks brighter than you & I have imagined a nice way for
us. It pops up a new Emacs window (pane, if you prefer the terminology)
showing a list of all filenames. You could continue typing, or just
click on a filename in the window, or hit return while the cursor is on
a filename in that window.

 

[joswig]

You guys are all in the wrong newsgroups. Please stay in comp.emacs
when discussing Emacs. Don't cross post.
Not everyone is interested in Emacs discussions.

Thanks.

Follow-up set to comp.emacs.

 

[Robert Uhl]

Of course, if emacs let you keep THREE windows open and visible at the
same time, instead of being limited to one or a horizontally split two
... and a cramped 80x10 or so each, at that ...

I have two frames open right now: one 80x70, the other around 180x70
(characters, not pixels). One isn't split at all; the other is split
into four windows, horizontally and vertically.

I'll admit that it didn't USED TO 'eschew normal methods of
navigation', but at a certain point in time there began to be 'normal
methods of navigation' and emacs naturally began eschewing them
promptly and has done so ever since.

emacs has continued doing its own thing, mostly because that thing is
better. The CUA standards (there exists an emacs package if you really
want them) are broken and lame--I and most other don't wish to cripple
our text editor of choice.

If I haven't, it must be the case that finding this tutorial (or even
discovering that it exists) was nontrivial, or it wasn't built into
emacs, one or the other.

When you start emacs in a text console, you see this:

Welcome to GNU Emacs, one component of the GNU/Linux operating system.

Type C-l to begin editing.

Get help C-h (Hold down CTRL and press h)
Emacs manual C-h r
Emacs tutorial C-h t Undo changes C-x u
Buy manuals C-h C-m Exit Emacs C-x C-c
Browse manuals C-h i
Activate menubar F10 or ESC ` or M-`
(`C-' means use the CTRL key. `M-' means use the Meta (or Alt) key.
If you have no Meta key, you may instead type ESC followed by the character.)

A GUI window shows a similar message. Note the 'Emacs tutorial' entry?
Or you could just go to the Help menu, then select 'Emacs Tutorial.'

Apparently because you find the switch second nature, despite its not
being the obvious (which is ctrl-tab, to switch between documents in
an MDI app).

Clicking within the document's window isn't obvious?!?

* OK, time to resort to *gulp* the help.
* Oh, great, now what did it do? I hit F1 and ...
* Eh. Try random stuff. Help starts with h. Alt-h? Ctrl-h? ...
* Oh, right. I seem to remember the help popping up unwanted when I
tried to backspace over a typo earlier, so I'll just do that.

Ha! f1 and C-h do the exact same thing. You've obviously not used emacs
this millennium.

WHAT menu bar? We're discussing emacs. As in, a text-mode editor. As
in a cramped little 80x24 grid of letters, numbers, spaces, and
punctuation with no menus, no concept of a pointing device, and a bad
attitude.

No, we're discussing emacs, a text editor which runs in both a GUI and a
text console. Which can display images. It's cool like that.

At least Windows 3.1 had most apps have the same keys for the vast
majority of commands, and those were the right keys. Emacs has all the
applications have the vast majority of their commands use the same
WRONG keys.

Neither is right nor wrong; you're just used to one. The emacs keys are
certainly more flexible and powerful, though. Some might consider them
right for that reason.

Search is usually ctrl+f, type something, hit enter in my experience.

Unless you want regexp search. And if you want to find again it can be
interesting. And maybe the program defaults to case-sensitive or
case-insensitive search...

And I can use any text editor I want to edit HTML.

You could use Notepad no doubt; you could also use a Turing machine. I
prefer to use a useful tool.

What are you talking about? Clearly not emacs, which is a console app
for unix systems (with the inevitable MS-DOS ports and others).

No, as I've said over and over and over again, emacs is not what you
think it is. It has a GUI; it has colours; it can display images; it
can use the native widget set. It can even be configured to use native
keybindings, although that way lies madness.

Some sort of bastardized Windows port I suppose?

Hah! Dude, I don't use Windows--I've better things to do with my life.

 

[Twisted]

Really? None of [navigating a folder window analogue] happens if
you just do the straightforward file-open command, which should
obviously at least provide a navigable directory tree, but
definitely does not.

The first does. Really, it does. Fire up emacs (which you've never
done before) and type C-x C-f.

Whoa, Nellie. I seem to recall we were discussing the file-open
command.
That was something else, like C-x C-o or something. More apples-and-
oranges?

You will be presented with a prompt
something like 'Find file: ~/'; hit tab once; you'll see the message
'[Complete, but not unique]'; hit tab again and you will be presented a
list of all files in that directory.

Sounds clunky anyway. I don't need a bunch of keypresses to do the
equivalent in an Explorer-based file-open dialog in a native Windows
app. Just a double-click.

Emacs, with your C-x C-f:
C-x C-f tab tab ("Startofnameofdirectory somethingElse
otherstuff")
Startofname tab tab ("Subdirectory anotherSubdirectory")
Subd tab tab

Windows:
Alt, f, o ("Startofnameofdirectory somethingElse
otherstuff")
Click-click
or Startofname-down-enter ("Subdirectory anotherSubdirectory")
Click-click
or Subd-down-enter

Worst case (all keyboard): one fewer keypress. Best case (judicious
use of the mouse and smart hand placement, one by left alt and one on
the mouse): five TOTAL gestures.

In particular, C-x C-f tab tab is replaced by alt f o (four down to
three keypresses) or click file, click open (two instead of three
inputs, but you have to locate the File menu from halfway across the
screen with the pointer, so count it as three as well).

Being able to pick an item from a list just by touching the damn thing
instead of typing in a sufficiently long prefix is definitely an
advantage, and if a lot of things share the same 16-character prefix
in a particular directory, the emacs way starts to look SLOW.

Of course, there's an even faster Windows way, if you don't mind not
seeing lists of possible items:
Alt, f, o
Startofname-down-/-Subd-down-/

Straight to the subdirectory without waiting for it to display the
parent directory or the root. Same number of inputs. And of course
there's the super-fast
Alt, f, o, C-v, enter
if you happen to have the exact path in the clipboard already. I'd
like to see emacs do that, at least if the text to paste originated
outside emacs. (If I'm doing this in Winword's file open dialog it
could have originated in Notepad, Firefox, or just about anywhere
else, not just Winword.)

If you like 'em, though, just select File:Visit New File. It gives you
a platform-default (gtk+, for me) file selector.

Now we're talking about a graphical port instead of stock emacs
again.

Nope, because of the way emacs works you can stop what you're doing, do
something else and come back to the minibuffer.

After spending a while brushing up on my Tibetan, I may or may not
agree, but until I've got some real meaning out of your use of jargon
like "minibuffer", I'll have to pass on this one. Nonetheless, stuff
you can do but can't know you can do without learning Tibetan is
unlikely to be of much help to the average user.

Fortunately, folks brighter than you & I have imagined a nice way for
us. It pops up a new Emacs window (pane, if you prefer the terminology)
showing a list of all filenames. You could continue typing, or just
click on a filename in the window, or hit return while the cursor is on
a filename in that window.

Back to discussing a graphical port again. Besides the apples and
oranges issue, this amounts to implementing a dodgy imitation of a
file open dialog anyway. Why bother with such an imitation when you
can use a natively-GUI editor written for your platform and get access
to the real thing?

 

[Twisted]

I have two frames open right now: one 80x70, the other around 180x70
(characters, not pixels). One isn't split at all; the other is split
into four windows, horizontally and vertically.

Then you're obviously not using the One True Emacs I am criticizing,
which is a console app. If we're not talking about the same piece of
software (and the one the fanatics evangelize about) then this is
pointless.

emacs has continued doing its own thing, mostly because that thing is
better. The CUA standards (there exists an emacs package if you really
want them) are broken and lame--I and most other don't wish to cripple
our text editor of choice.

"CUA standards"? I'm sorry, I don't speak Botswanan. If you mean
Windows standards like for cut, copy, and paste, "broken and lame" is
obviously in the eye in the beholder, and something 97% of computer
users are used to is the defacto standard, so it's the other 3% that
are "broken and lame".

When you start emacs in a text console, you see this:

Welcome to GNU Emacs, one component of the GNU/Linux operating system.

Type C-l to begin editing.

Get help C-h (Hold down CTRL and press h)
Emacs manual C-h r
Emacs tutorial C-h t Undo changes C-x u

Really? That is not what I recall seeing. Are you talking about emacs-
the-text-mode-editor, or emacs-the-hybrid-somethingorother-when-you-
happen-to-run-it-from-the-command-prompt-on-unix? Because I've been
discussing the former.

Buy manuals C-h C-m

How crass.

First I've seen anything open source/"free" software that makes sales
pitches at you. Mostly I've only seen that with closed-source Windows
"free"ware loaded with adware, and with shareware that nags you to
register or otherwise spend money with its author. And with actual
paid products, particularly those from Intuit which act as Intuit's
front-line salesmen by trying to constantly upsell you and sell stuff
to your friends and relatives. Er, thanks but no thanks. (I don't
personally spend a dime on any Intuit products. I unfortunately know
people who do. One version of some accounting software of theirs even
spammed all of a user's email contacts, by God. Where are those
Russian spammer-targeting hitmen when you need them?)

Activate menubar F10 or ESC ` or M-`

Definitely not the stock text-mode emacs I've had my runins with in
the past, but some kind of hybrid or offshoot, then.

Clicking within the document's window isn't obvious?!?

Clicking within the document's window is obvious but doesn't work,
unless you're using something other than vanilla emacs at least. It
did of course work in MS-DOS Edit, later versions.

No, we're discussing emacs, a text editor which runs in both a GUI and a
text console. Which can display images. It's cool like that.

No, we're discussing ... oh, nevermind. It looks like there are
several utterly different pieces of software that have one thing in
common - the name "emacs". Anyone can dodge or seem to rebut a
criticism of one of them by describing how another of them isn't like
that.

Neither is right nor wrong; you're just used to one. The emacs keys are
certainly more flexible and powerful, though. Some might consider them
right for that reason.

The Windows keys are familiar to 97% of the population. Some might
consider them right for that reason.

This is also a change from your earlier position that they were, and I
quote, "broken and lame", assuming you mean the same stock Windoze
keybindings you meant with the cryptic term "CUA standards".

Unless you want regexp search. And if you want to find again it can be
interesting.

I rarely want regexp search, and if I want it I can use Notetab, a
notepad replacement with tabbed MDI and yes, regexp search. A few tabs
and a space keypress to turn it on after ctrl+f.

As for "find again" hitting enter additional times is the usual
method, in Notetab, Notepad, and elsewhere.

You could use Notepad no doubt; you could also use a Turing machine. I
prefer to use a useful tool.

Painting it as a choice between Notepad and emacs is the fallacy of
false dichotomy. There's Notetab (useful, but non-free) and lots of
(sometimes free) other text editors (for Windows and for other
platforms).

Some specialize in HTML editing the way Eclipse's built-in editor
specializes in Java editing (and with plugins, can be made to
specialize in, say, C instead).

No, as I've said over and over and over again, emacs is not what you
think it is. It has a GUI; it has colours; it can display images; it
can use the native widget set. It can even be configured to use native
keybindings, although that way lies madness.

One thing I agree on regarding emacs is the phrase "that way lies
madness". I'm amending that belief to include participating in Usenet
discussions about emacs, as well as actually trying to use emacs.
Given that everyone seems to mean a distinct piece of software by the
term "emacs" it's a wonder anything coherent can be said about "emacs"
at all. Actually, the one constant to emerge in all of this is C-h
being associated with accessing the help in all of these various
emacses. And we all know that that results in backspace doing
surprising things for a text editor.

Hah! Dude, I don't use Windows--I've better things to do with my life.

Xemacs then, or whatever they're calling the bolted-on-an-X-GUI-and-
the-rivet-job-shows-from-1000-paces version these days.

 

[JackT]

It looks like there are
several utterly different pieces of software that have one thing in
common - the name "emacs"...


Really? That is not what I recall seeing. Are you talking aboutemacs-
the-text-mode-editor, oremacs-the-hybrid-somethingorother-when-you-
happen-to-run-it-from-the-command-prompt-on-unix? Because I've been
discussing the former.

Everyone now uses http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
or a minor derivative of it.

Its official distribution FTP location is
http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/

And for the Windows port, the official FTP is here
http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/windows/

We don't care about the 1970 version of Emacs,
because of course back then there WAS NO GUI.

- JackT

 

[Cor Gest]

Some entity, AKA JackT <[email protected]>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)

We don't care about the 1970 version of Emacs,
because of course back then there WAS NO GUI.

But if you are blind as bat, any 2007's GUI is useless.

Cor

 

[JackT]

(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)

No need to be insulting.

But if you are blind as bat, any 2007's GUI is useless.

You may have missed part of the discussion.

Today's GNU emacs will still run with most of its features
(even keyboard-driven text-drawn menu) when you run
it on a GUI-less environment.

At the same time, today's GNU emacs, when run on a GUI,
will be able to pop up file-selection menus, display colors, etc. etc.

- JackT

 

[Robert Uhl]

Really? None of [navigating a folder window analogue] happens if
you just do the straightforward file-open command, which should
obviously at least provide a navigable directory tree, but
definitely does not.

The first does. Really, it does. Fire up emacs (which you've never
done before) and type C-x C-f.

Whoa, Nellie. I seem to recall we were discussing the file-open
command. That was something else, like C-x C-o or something. More
apples-and- oranges?

Fortunately, emacs has a facility to tell exactly what's bound to a key
sequence. C-h k (or f1 k, if you prefer)followed by that sequence will
display what's bound to it, and the documentation for that function.

C-h k C-x C-o yields:

C-x C-o runs the command delete-blank-lines

C-h k C-x o yields:

C-x o runs the command other-window

C-h k C-x C-f yields:

C-x C-f runs the command find-file

So you can see how cool emacs is, here's the entire output for C-x C-f,
demonstrating how the editor documents itself:

C-x C-f runs the command find-file
which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `files.el'.
It is bound to <open>, C-x C-f, <menu-bar> <file> <new-file>.
(find-file filename &optional wildcards)

Edit file filename.
Switch to a buffer visiting file filename,
creating one if none already exists.
Interactively, the default if you just type RET is the current directory,
but the visited file name is available through the minibuffer history:
type M-n to pull it into the minibuffer.

Interactively, or if wildcards is non-nil in a call from Lisp,
expand wildcards (if any) and visit multiple files. You can
suppress wildcard expansion by setting `find-file-wildcards' to nil.

To visit a file without any kind of conversion and without
automatically choosing a major mode, use M-x find-file-literally.

You will be presented with a prompt
something like 'Find file: ~/'; hit tab once; you'll see the message
'[Complete, but not unique]'; hit tab again and you will be presented a
list of all files in that directory.

Sounds clunky anyway. I don't need a bunch of keypresses to do the
equivalent in an Explorer-based file-open dialog in a native Windows
app. Just a double-click.

Generally, you need to scroll, too, as the Windows file widget doesn't
display a lot of files at once.

Of course, there's an even faster Windows way, if you don't mind not
seeing lists of possible items:
Alt, f, o
Startofname-down-/-Subd-down-/

How is this different from C-x C-f Startofname-tab-Subd-tab? Except
emacs saves you type slashes...

Now we're talking about a graphical port instead of stock emacs
again.

That _is_ stock emacs, I assure you.

Back to discussing a graphical port again.

It's not a port--it's emacs. And save for the click all of the above
works in both a GUI and a console. It's nice working the same way in
multiple places.

Besides the apples and oranges issue, this amounts to implementing a
dodgy imitation of a file open dialog anyway. Why bother with such an
imitation when you can use a natively-GUI editor written for your
platform and get access to the real thing?

Because it's nice having the same interface no matter what. Because
GUIs come and GUIs go (remember CDE? OpenView?), but emacs will always
be there. Because it's nice being able to fire up emacs and not care
what platform one is running on.

 

[Robert Uhl]

Then you're obviously not using the One True Emacs I am criticizing,
which is a console app.

No, the One True Emacs supports GUIs. It has since 1991. Take a look

"CUA standards"? I'm sorry, I don't speak Botswanan. If you mean
Windows standards like for cut, copy, and paste, "broken and lame" is
obviously in the eye in the beholder, and something 97% of computer
users are used to is the defacto standard, so it's the other 3% that
are "broken and lame".

Popularity is no measure of goofness.

No, we're discussing ... oh, nevermind. It looks like there are
several utterly different pieces of software that have one thing in
common - the name "emacs".

That is actually true. There's GNU emacs (the original and still the
best). There's XEmacs (a fork of the same). Then there are a myriad of
ancient emacsen, most particularly Gosling emacs.

However, the only two which matter are GNU emacs and XEmacs. Both have
supported a GUI for 16 years now. I don't have XEmacs installed, so I
cannot tell you if it has the tutorial. I would be truly surprised if
it didn't.

Neither is right nor wrong; you're just used to one. The emacs keys are
certainly more flexible and powerful, though. Some might consider them
right for that reason.

[snip]

This is also a change from your earlier position that they were, and I
quote, "broken and lame", assuming you mean the same stock Windoze
keybindings you meant with the cryptic term "CUA standards".

Not really--they're broken and lame because they are less flexible and
powerful.

How 'bout you actually try using a modern emacs? It'll even support
your chosen operating system.

 

[Rob Warnock]

+---------------
| However, the only two which matter are GNU emacs and XEmacs.
| Both have supported a GUI for 16 years now. I don't have
| XEmacs installed, so I cannot tell you if it has the tutorial.
| I would be truly surprised if it didn't.
+---------------

It does. And the default startup splash screen
tells you how to access it.


-Rob

 

[David Kastrup]

Some entity, AKA JackT <[email protected]>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)


But if you are blind as bat, any 2007's GUI is useless.

Have you actually talked to a blind person about that? They often
prefer the GUI applications since they tend to interact better with
screen readers and the accessibility software available for the GUI's
toolkits. Sounds crazy, I know.

Anyway, Emacs plays in a league of its own for blind people due to
Emacspeak.

 

[Lars Brinkhoff]

I should think that version 2.3.1 would not even try ftp. Is that
on Multics?

Note that the GNU Emacs version jumped directly from 1.12 to 13.
See etc/ONEWS.1.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

The manuals came with the computers, at no additional charge. It was a
different time. This isn't going to be true of any separately-
purchased book or user-made printout concerning emacs. Also, the
manuals provided a basic introduction for the beginning user. A
traditional-unix-tool providing anything resembling that would
genuinely shock me.

Oh, so manuals are OK and you'll read them if they are dead trees that
came in the same box as the software, but not if they're HOWTOs, online
documentation or O'Reilly books?

I distinctly remember Winword circa 2002 not being able to
retroactively change all of a bunch of like-formatted paragraphs
easily. Not without delving into VBscript or something, anyway.

So you didn't read the free but thick and stodgy Word manual? Styles and
style sheets have been in Word since Word for DOS 5. Changing a style
sheet has always affected all documents that reference it.

Oh, because the implementation (of "reveal codes" and of everything
else) was awful, not because of any intrinsic flaw in the idea itself.

If a word processor, which by definition is provides a WYSIWYG user
interface, can't produce perfectly formatted text by editing a
representation of the finished result then its a deeply flawed program
and not fit for purpose.

By providing 'Reveal codes' and by being designed in such a way as to
force its regular use, Wordperfect reveals itself as being no better
than nrof or tex - its like expecting a user to write postscript source
with a text editor and providing a separate window with a Postscript
viewer to see what the final result will look like.

Would you want to edit a Web page without being able to hand-hack the
HTML?
>

Of course not, but HTML isn't anything to do with WYSIWYG and any system
(Coldfusion, Front Page, HTML from Word) that pretends it is WYSIWG is
both useless and perpetrating a fraud.

What happened to the guys that did all this stuff after it became
obsolete?
>

It isn't obsolete despite going back a looong way. The hardware and
software was originally developed as Future Series (intended S/360
replacement), was canned in 1970 but resurfaced in the late 80s as
System/38. A second generation appeared as AS/400, was renamed to (I
think) Z-series and are now known as iSeries servers. Its good, reliable
kit and easy to work with if you don't mind programming in RPG.

I know of no better "one size fits all" interface design than that
provided by the OS/400 operating system. Its still called that. Its a
pity the interface style hasn't been emulated by others.

It would be nice if straightforward macro recording was standard in Windows
though.

It was standard with Win 3.1 and 3.11 and it was bloody useless. Most
people I know tried it once or twice before giving up and writing .BAT
files or putting up with RSI. The problem was that it recorded
keystrokes and mouse clicks. Even minor changes to the screen layout
made it fail and the macros couldn't be edited or parameterised nor made
to prompt for filenames, etc.

You can do better with Gnome, thanks to tcl, but I think most people go
straight to Ruby or stick to plain vanilla shell scripts.

 

[Andreas Eder]

Hi Twisted,

Twisted> That's entirely orthogonal to the issue of interface learning curve OR
Twisted> interface ease-of-use. Emacs has deficiencies in both areas, if
Twisted> principally the former. (For an example of the latter, consider
Twisted> opening a file. Can't remember the exact spelling and capitalization
Twisted> of the file name? Sorry, bud, you're SOL.

Wrong, ever heard about input completion?

Twisted> Go find it in some other app
Twisted> and memorize the name, then return to emacs.

Wrong. Do you know dired?

For even more ease of use use someting like ido, or icicles. It
runs rings about Editors like Notepad.

Twisted> Now THAT is what I call
Twisted> disruptive context switching. Meanwhile even the lowly Notepad
Twisted> responds to "open" by displaying a list of text files and tools to
Twisted> navigate the folder hierarchy without having to do it blind, while
Twisted> still letting you blind-type a path if you remember it. And you can
Twisted> also paste the path in from the clipboard.

You can do so in emacs as well.

Twisted> Unix systems don't even
Twisted> *have* a proper system-wide clipboard and copy/paste capability. Under
Twisted> X there's a weak, text-only imitation, which doesn't help you much
Twisted> when you want to copy a selection from an image in a paint program and
Twisted> paste it into a CAD or web-design or specialized image-manipulation
Twisted> tool or whatever...you have to save it to a file and load it, which is
Twisted> a pain in the butt and slowly clutters your hard drive with
Twisted> "temporary" files you occasionally forget to delete.

You obviously have no clue about working under Unix either.

'Andreas

 

[Giorgos Keramidas]

C-h i, C-x b RET is non-trivial?!?

[...]
I'm sorry. I don't speak Chinese.

I trust I've made my point. Not only does it insist you learn a whole
other language (though I'm guessing it's not actually Chinese --
Greek, maybe), even when you know that's a bunch of keystrokes and
even what they are...

HOW IN THE BLOODY HELL IS IT SUPPOSED TO OCCUR TO SOMEONE TO ENTER
THEM, GIVEN THAT THEY HAVE TO DO SO TO REACH THE HELP THAT WOULD TELL
THEM THOSE ARE THE KEYS TO REACH THE HELP?!

No it's not Greek. I can assure you it isn't, because I *am* Greek.

Now, regarding your shouting about the keys, have you tried using a
recent GNU Emacs installation? The first thing that pops up when a new
user runs Emacs looks like this:

,-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Welcome to GNU Emacs, a part of the GNU operating system.
|
| Type C-l to begin editing.
|
| Get help C-h (Hold down CTRL and press h)
| Emacs manual C-h r
| Emacs tutorial C-h t Undo changes C-x u
| Buy manuals C-h C-m Exit Emacs C-x C-c
| Browse manuals C-h i
| Activate menubar F10 or ESC ` or M-`
| (`C-' means use the CTRL key. `M-' means use the Meta (or Alt) key.
| If you have no Meta key, you may instead type ESC followed by the character.)
|
| GNU Emacs 22.1.50.2 (i386-unknown-freebsd7.0, X toolkit)
| of 2007-05-29 on kobe
| Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
|
| GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; type C-h C-w for full details.
| Emacs is Free Software--Free as in Freedom--so you can redistribute copies
| of Emacs and modify it; type C-h C-c to see the conditions.
| Type C-h C-d for information on getting the latest version.
`-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Basic reading skills are necessary to parse this 'splash' screen, but it
shouldn't be too hard to read a few lines of text which guide you about
the proper key sequence to reach the tutorial, right?

Of course, Notepad is so easy to use it doesn't even need help,
despite which it's readily available. In case you forgot the bog-
standard (and therefore it IS self-evident) "F1" there's even a "Help"
menu in plain view as soon as you open a Notepad.

There's also a "Help" menu in plain sight when you fire up Emacs with an
X11 interface. I don't see why Notepad is special in any way here.

This is the lowly Notepad, which I'll freely admit is the rusty
bicycle of text editors, and it's much easier to use (including the
help) than the supposed Mercedes-Benz of editors.

Isn't this always the case? The 'interface' of a tiny bicycle is
something which even very young kids can master pretty fast. On the
other hand, I'm relatively sure there's at least one valid reason we
don't let pre-school aged children drive around Mercedes-Benz cars,
isn't there?

 

[Giorgos Keramidas]

So now we're expected to go on a filesystem fishing expedition instead
of just hit F1? One small step (backwards) for a man; one giant leap
(backwards) for mankind.


So much for the "free" in "free software". If you can't actually use
it without paying money, whether for the software or for some book, it
isn't really free, is it?

Please do not confuse the term 'free' in 'free software' with 'gratis'.

'Gratis', i.e. 'lacking a monetary price tag' is something *very*
different from the meaning of 'free' in 'free software'.

 

[blmblm]

On Jun 23, 10:36 am, Martin Gregorie <[email protected]>
wrote:

[ snip ]

* The operating system where you can do powerful stuff with a command
line and a script or two, but can also get by without either. (Windows
fails the former. Linux fails the latter.)

About the latter -- it's hard for me to be sure, since for many
things something with a GUI is not my first choice of tool, but
my impression is that on "user-friendly" Linux distributions,
pretty much everything, including sysadmin stuff, can be done by
pointing and clicking, starting with the menus displayed on the
default desktop. Perhaps someone with more/different experience
can comment on how many things still require scripting or a
command line.

[ snip ]

 

[blmblm]

On Jun 23, 2:04 am, Robert Uhl <[email protected]> wrote:

[ snip ]

Apparently because you find the switch second nature, despite its not
being the obvious (which is ctrl-tab, to switch between documents in
an MDI app). Cheat sheet? Memorized with painstaking months of hard
effort? Thanks for proving my point, either way.

Not really ragging on you, however it seems, but this is a pet
peeve of mine, and I have a few minutes, and this thread is
already pretty much out of control, so ....

Painstaking months of hard effort? You know, I started out in
the days before GUIs, so I have experience with cheat sheets,
but I don't remember ever being given one and being told that
there would be a quiz in a week, or a month, or whatever.
Instead, I used the cheat sheet at first, and over the course
of the first few -- hours, weeks, I don't know -- found that I
needed it less and less, as the commands I actually used in my
daily work made their way into my memory. (Does that mean that
I didn't memorize all the commands on the cheat sheet? Maybe.
But the ones I didn't learn were ones I didn't need.)

To me it's similar to "memorizing" a phone number by dialing
it enough times that it makes its way into memory without
conscious effort. I suspect that not everyone's brain works
this way, and some people have to look it up every time.
For those people, I can understand why something without a
GUI could be a painful experience. "YMMV", maybe.

[ snip ]