Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers

[조성빈]

Po Lu <address@hidden> 작성:

> Sébastien Gendre <address@hidden> writes:
>
>
> > Let's see some use-cases:
> > - Bob: A newcomer, who just discover Emacs. He search somthing who is
> >   visually modern, with all features he need to start writing code in
> >   most popular languages: Code colouration, auto-completion, code
> >   navigation, code documentation and functions/methods signature
> >   automatically shown, code errors/warnings signalling, REPL
> >   integration, snippets, strong GIT integration, etc. He also want to
> >   use basic features without the need to read a tutorial. Just install
> >   and go. But he is ok to read some tuto or manuals for advanced
> >   features. If we ask him question(s) about what to enable or not, he
> >   probably cannot respond (or thing he cannot). For him, Emacs need to
> >   be the most out of the box possible.
> > - Alice: A long time user. She got a personal Emacs configuration she
> >   had perfected over the years. She chose herself what system is used
> >   to show function completion, which code parser is used for her daily
> >   used languages. She add some packages to integrate with special
> >   tools used at her work. Emacs is her home and office: She use it as
> >   much for her personal project than for her work. She also made a
> >   personal workflow with org-mode and write some personal Elisp
> >   functions and advices. She forge the tools to her need. She do not
> >   want to have an update of Emacs who break her configuration, her
> >   workflow or her muscle memory.
> > - Mei: She simply want to use SpaceEmacs. She need to be sure
> >   SpaceEmacs would work out of the box and be able to override all
> >   defaults Emacs configuration. So SpaceEmacs developers need a way to
> >   doing their work without the need to deactivate a hundred of default
> >   features one after another and risk to forget one. This possibility
> >   should be well documented. As the need of Mei is covered by
> >   SpaceEmacs, she doesn't have special request about Emacs except make
> >   it easy to use SpaceEmacs.
> > - Roberto: He work on a pre-configuration of Emacs, similar to
> >   SpaceEmacs. He need a simple and documented way to deactivate all
> >   default configurations that would make is work difficult. If
> >   possible, in one move. And, of course, he need to know what is
> >   deactivated so he can choose wisely what to enable and what to not.
>
> You have summed up the use-cases rather well.  Thanks.
>
> > For these 4 use-cases, we can simply provide 2 flavors of Emacs:
> > - Emacs: With all the 2020 features, a modern interface, all needed
> >   modern features to start coding with most popular languages and easy
> >   to use for basic usages
> > - Emacs Vanilla: All the new features are still there, but deactivate
> >   to not break anything
> > And these 2 flavors can be in the same text editor: For switch from a
> > flavor to another, simply enable the global-minor-mode `vanilla-mode`.
> > And if Emacs detect, after an update or a first start, an already
> > existing configuration that it could break because of some features:
> > Emacs simply activate `vanilla-mode` automatically.
>
> I'm afraid it's not that simple.  I don't think we need any radical
> changes in Emacs to be turned on by default, but maybe something like a
> set-up wizard or "New to Emacs? Click here" would be useful.

I can’t understand why you’re so opposed to changing defaults. Defaults
matter, and I think that users who are already accustomed to Emacs will
have an easier time changing options. (Like adding `(vanilla-mode 1)`
to init.el.)

> > - Alice update Emacs. When she restart it, Emacs detect an already
> >   existing configuration that it could break by enabling some
> >   features. So, Emacs simply enable `vanilla-mode` and add it to the
> >   `init.el`. Emacs also show a message to Alice: "Emacs detected that
> >   you have some personal configuration, so it active Vanilla-mode to
> >   avoid breaking your configuration. Vanilla-mode deactivate some
> >   features that you can re-enable manually.". This message is
> >   accompanied by a clickable link to the documentation about the
> >   `vanilla-mode` to see what it does in the details and what is
> >   deactivate.
>
> I'm not sure whether Emacs can reliably detect updates or not.

Adding a variable that makes Emacs warn if it’s version number is
different from its value might work.

> IIRC,
> there was a discussion a while back that said no.  Plus, as I've
> previously mentioned, I don't think Emacs should adopt any drastic
> changes as the default configuration, but instead make the changes
> easily discoverable.

The features that are best discoverable are the ones that are default.

> (or at least until all of us old farts have had
> another decade or 2 to adjust).

Defaults have to change for experienced users to adjust. And for them,
adjusting is an easy task, not something that takes a decade.