Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers

[Po Lu]

ndame <address@hidden> writes:

> Yes, these changes should be clearly marked in NEWS, so those who don't want
> them, can revert them.

Massive features that drastically change behaviour should be off by
default.  Stability over users. What's wrong with a button on the fancy
splash screen?

> Out of the box Emacs should be instantly usable for newcomers and older users
> could adapt for the sake of Emacs. I wouldn't mind adding a line to my .emacs 
> to
> turn something off which I don't need, but which can make the life of new
> users easier.

You can't turn massive changes off by adding "one line to my .emacs".
You can however turn them on by adding a button to the splash screen.

Emacs cannot and will never be usable out-of-the-box for 100% of all
usecases.  You can however make it easier for people to start, and again
that's when the "button on splash screen" approach comes in.

> For example, CUA mode could be on by default. I would turn it off, but it 
> could
> make the life of new users easier if they didn't have to turn it on explicitly
> and they could use their copy/paste keys from the start like they are used it 
> to
> in other tools.

That mentality would lead to an unacceptable maintainence burden for a lot of
people.  Again: what's wrong with putting a button on the splash screen?