Re: Info tutorial is out of date

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Drew!

On Sun, Jul 16, 2006 at 10:33:42AM -0700, Drew Adams wrote:
>     > Another in the Mouseless-That-Roared camp, eh? A small, but very
>     > vocal and militant minority, apparently. Vent against he who
>     > seems to speak for the lousy moused masses of nasty newbies. It's
>     > OK; I can take it; I have to, for the noobs' sake ;-).

>     Well, there are about 100 people on the Emacs project list, and 3
>     have taken exception to your m[o]usings.  Even assuming the other
>     ~97, none of whom has yet voiced an opinion on the matter, are
>     confirmed habitual mousers, that leaves 3% of users as mouse
>     haters.  The point is, you don't have any decent statistics and
>     neither do I.

> 1. I'm *not* a mouser. Except to click links sometimes, I use keys in
> Info (and Emacs). This is not about what I use or what you use or 27%
> or 97% of emacs-devel use; it is about how best to teach newbies about
> Info.

The discussion is not entirely unlike C-n vs. <down arrow> in the Emacs
tutorial.  What was the consensus there?

[ .... ]

> Mousing or not seems to be a hot-button issue for those who don't use a
> mouse. To me, it is a non-issue. I don't promote use of the mouse, and
> I am all for recommending in the tutorial (and elsewhere) that newbies
> learn to use keyboard commands.

Your suggested change to that tutorial would be promoting mouse use at
the expense of keyboard use.  You are conflating what is widespread and
usual with what is good.  This is bad!  There's no innocent get-out here
- not for you, not for me.

[ .... ]

>     Drew, you've hit a raw nerve.  Whether one uses a mouse extensively
>     or not is a highly emotional thing, on a par with whether one uses
>     Microsoft Windows XP rather than GNU/Linux.  Your original post was
>     a rant, and you used lots of loaded words and phrases (like
>     "shortcut").  You shouldn't be too surprised at getting flamed a
>     little bit.

> I don't care if I'm flamed; I enjoyed the exchange, as entertainment.

> My original post was not at all a rant; the fact that you see it that way
> says something about your hot button.

Er, didn't you yourself describe your original post as a rant?  ;-)

[ .... ]

> Key bindings *are* shortcuts - what's wrong with that? 1) They are
> commonly called "keyboard shortcuts" by many people. 2) They are
> shorter (quicker) to use than clicking menus and links with a mouse -
> don't you agree? They are shorter (quicker) than using `M-x' - don't
> you agree? What is it about "shortcut" that sets you off?

It's one of those sort of words/phrases so beloved of
journalists/salesmen/politicians that can be used to denigrate something,
yet the j/s/p, when called on it, can convincingly pretend it was totally
innocent and factual, as you have done in the preceding paragraph.

A bit like you can denigrate Lisp by calling it a "traditional" language,
with the undertones of "something so old-fashioned that a with-it modern
hacker wouldn't want to waste his time learning it".  Or like you could
denigrate a musical performance by calling it "workmanlike", carrying the
undertones "all the notes were in the right place, yet deeper musical
meaning was lacking".

In English, "shortcut" usually carries connotations of something naughty.
Like "the boys took a shortcut across the farmer's field" or "the
engineers, being pressed for time, took shortcuts in the maintenance
schedule, thus causing the aeroplane to crash".  Thus when you call a key
sequence a "shortcut", you're transmitting the subliminal message "this
is somehow illegitimate and the mouse action is the canonical correct way
to invoke the function".  I suspect this was deliberate, introduced by a
genius of a wordsmith around the time that mice were just catching on, in
the early 1980s.

What's wrong with the neutral term "key sequence"?

>     I think there are a lot more pure keyboard users out there than you
>     do.

> Who knows? I tried to offer some objective info - do you have something
> to add to that?

What you quoted missed the point.  Sure 99.9999% of computers are
equipped with mice, and they get used day in day out.  Who doesn't fire
up Firefox (or that ghastly proprietary program it's steadily
superseding) every day and mouse it?  Even I do, so I'd get included
amongst habitual mouse users in that survey.  A more pertinent question
would be "do you regularly use an application without recourse to the
mouse?"

>     I also think that not encouraging frivolous mouse use is a Good
>     Thing.

> I'm not encouraging mouse use, "frivolous" or otherwise. I proposed
> that we get to the heart of the teaching matter in Info right away,
> using the obvious tools available that everyone knows how to use: links
> and buttons. I didn't weigh in on the keyboard vs mouse issue at all -
> I didn't even know there was such an issue - it's your hot button, not
> mine. I mentioned mouse-usage statistics in my followup to your rant
> because I think it's a mistake to orient the entire Info tutorial to
> the use patterns of a tiny minority.

We're back in C-n vs. <down arrow> territory now.  You ARE weighing in on
the mouse vs. keyboard issue.  You are proposing telling people to use
mouse clicks instead of key sequences, and have opined that those key
sequences are incidental rather than essential.  I disagree with you here
- it seems to me like telling a newbie musician not to bother learning to
play scales, just to go directly to the music, the important stuff.

I have experience of telling ordinary computer users about key sequences:
"You know, you can type alt-f s to save the file rather than grasping for
the mouse.", and they typically 'phone me up a day or two later with
"Alan, thank you!  It's SO MUCH easier that way!".

[ .... ]

> I don't see the point in making the first half of the Info tutorial a
> battle for keyboardism against creeping mousism. Get the new users to
> the info on Info right away. Bring them to keyboard heaven afterward.

The sooner you start learning to play scales, the sooner you can play
Beethoven half decently.

[ .... ]

> Thank you again. Perhaps we can discuss the details - of disagreement,
> for example - of the main points.

I don't disagree with your other main points.  "Me too!".

>     > So let's spruce it.

>     Glad to end on a not[e] of agreement.  :-)

[e]?  Outch!

> As am I.

-- 
Alan.