[rescue] emacs vs. Word!, was Re: SUN PCMCIA SBus Card

[Dave McGuire]

On 05/28/2018 09:30 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>>    By the way, my (unmodified) emacs' menu bar is at the top, and it
>> starts with File, Edit (no "view", sorry), and ends in Help.
> 
> [1] Oh really? On the console, without X?

  Actually, yes.  The menu bar is independent of the display device, and
it appears in pure text mode terminals as well.

> [2] The standardisation also applies to the shared options on those menus,
> and the menus in between, of course.

  Well there you get into the trap of removing or changing functionality
to conform to the menu system.  I think that's backwards.  You may disagree.

>>    Changing the keys to make it conform to other editors would result in
>> a loss of functionality.  "Find"?  Really?  Do you understand how many
>> types of searches emacs implements?
> 
> Don't care. Conform or GTFO.

  I know you don't care.  I do.  That's why you're not an emacs user,
and I am.  You'll find that removing functionality to make one program
look and act like some other one isn't an idea that many developers (or
users) will embrace.

>> There
>> are even three distinct ways to "Open" a file...there are surely
>> actually more than that, but those three are just the ones I happen to
>> have used so far this morning.  It's not an editor for simpletons!
> 
> Don't care. I am no simpleton. But like it or not, there has been a world
> standard for text editor UI for about 35 years now. I am not interested in
> anything else. The existence of this standard has vastly simplified my work
> in every position I've had since 1990 or so and it has improved computing
> in general.

  Great!  Good for you.  Use your favorite editor.

  This isn't a homogeneity thing.  It's not an ease-of-learning thing.
It's a functionality and power thing.  The fact that a lot of editors
have copied each other's UI isn't really relevant here at all.  Once
again, not for simpletons.  You say you're not a simpleton, and having
occasionally read your work I would agree.  But you use your tools like one.

  And once again, that's ok.

  As for me, I don't need my workflows provided to me by someone who
thinks he/she knows what is the best way for me to work.  I've been
using both emacs and vi regularly since the mid-1980s and I want for
nothing in text manipulation.

 Monocultures often suck.

>>    But seriously.  An emacs vs. vi (or anything else) war?  We really
>> haven't gotten past that?  It was A FRIGGIN' JOKE, children!  Once again
>> I'm sorry I even mentioned it.  I've learned my lesson.
> 
> Nope. I hate vi as well. I use Tilde on my own systems:

  ROFL!  Having extricated myself from the classiccmp mailing list, I'd
forgotten that about you.  The psychology world have a name for your
type of personality, the guy who hates everything and complains about
everything, but I don't know what the name is offhand.

> https://os.ghalkes.nl/tilde/

  ...hey, that looks pretty nice!

>>    Thirty years ago it was the vi-tribesmen that came forth.  Now it's
>> the "why isn't this identical to Word!!" tribesmen.  WTF!  Complaining
>> about a free tool that enhances my ability to make a living that nobody
>> is forced to install?  Wow.
> 
> If the tool is that good, don't you want other people to use it too? Don't
> you want it to spread?
> 
> Or do you want it to wither away and slowly die?
> 
> Then it must join the standards club.

  Well, things don't really work that way in the real world.  The proof
is in emacs.  It's doing just fine, implementation after implementation.
 The most common implementation, GNU emacs, has been around for 30+
years and is doing just fine.  It's not going to "die" just for your
gratification.

> FTAOD, I have absolutely no problem with whatever weird UI old hands prefer
> still being there and selectable, but if it doesn't look like Notepad,
> basically, I won't use it and neither will 99.999% of the next 2 or 3
> billion people who will be getting computers for the first time in the next
> decade.
> 
> This battle is lost. It's over. It was over last century. There are 2
> holdouts ignoring it: vi(/vim/elvis/whatever) and Emacs. The others, like
> Joe or Pico, are rounding errors.

  ROFLMAO!!

  Liam, I have *plonk*'d you (pardon poor usage, it's early) more times
than I can count over the years.  You've just reminded me of why.

             -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA