Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 27.04.2020 20:50, ndame wrote:
> > The article is here:
> >
> > https://download.blender.org/documentation/pdf/LXF204.feat_3d.5cjt.pdf
>
> That's not it, google found a version, some excerpts:

Yeah, the above is a 5-year old article. But it was interesting too, and 
especially the emphasis on animators generally needing dedicated 
training to start being productive.

> "Blender developers – would defend the software’s defiantly idiosyncratic UI on the 
> grounds that ‘different doesn’t always mean worse’. Blender could do everything that 
> other 3D packages could, they argued, and given a little time, it was possible to adapt 
> your old working methods to a new combination of icons, keyboard shortcuts and menu 
> commands. But for artists working in visual effects or game development – notoriously 
> high-pressure industries, particularly when deadlines are looming – time is at a premium. 
> Many people who might otherwise have loved Blender got no further than its splash 
> screen"
>
> ...
>
> "Others struck at the heart of Blender veterans’ sense of identity and even their 
> muscle memory. In almost every other 3D application, you leftclick to select things. In 
> Blender, prior to 2.80, you rightclicked by default. Supporters argued that it made for a 
> faster, more precise workflow – but it was also alien to artists coming to Blender from 
> other software."
>
> ...
>
>
> https://www.pressreader.com/australia/linux-format/20191217/281745566267591

That's a very good read. Another quote, not much relevant for Emacs, but 
it could make for a good promo material for FSF:

“We don’t see open source as free. We see it as free-ing,” says Bell. 
“You could cer­tainly save money if you wanted to, but I see it as an 
op­por­tu­nity to take a por­tion of the bud­get and re­di­rect it to 
our core soft­ware. We truly hope that oth­ers will take the 
de­vel­op­ment work we’ve put in and push it fur­ther.”

> There are obvious similarities with Emacs' current situation.

I also see a lot of parallels between the programs themselves.