Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers

[Arthur Miller]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:04:13 -0700
>> From: Ahmed Khanzada <address@hidden>
>> Cc: Po Lu <address@hidden>,
>>  Sébastien Gendre <address@hidden>,
>>  조성빈 <address@hidden>,
>>  Emacs developers <address@hidden>
>> 
>> Let's say tomorrow Emacs is like VS Code running Emacs Lisp in a Guile
>> VM. Is the idea that if we compete in the same modes as the modernist
>> editors, we can steal enough people from them that we will advance the
>> cause of free software?
>
> More users generally means more contributors, more future developers,
> and better Emacs.  And yes, it advances the cause of Free Software,
> like any other free package that attracts users.
Definitely! Users are important.

There is an interesting interviw/article in Linux Format from January
this year with Ton Roosendaal, the creator of 3D modelling/animation
package Blender. Blender went form relatively non-popular 3D application
on the verge of extinction to become a multimillion industry accepted
application. He touches on tradeoffs Blender made between "old wyas" and
more accepted "modern standards" and importance to appeal to "masses".
In sense it touches on similar questions as Emacs is faced with, so it
might be an interesting read. Just as a side note ...