Re: Eev-wconfig.el etc etc, or: "Exercise: Learn Org!"

[Eduardo Ochs]

Hi Ihor!
Thanks for your questions!

On Fri, 27 May 2022 at 11:30, Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com> wrote:
> You are discussing too many things at once in one video.

Yes - that's why I made an index for the video:

  (find-1stclassvideoindex "2022eevwconfig")
  http://angg.twu.net/.emacs.videos.html#2022eevwconfig

> What is the main point you want to explain in the video? How to
> download, watch, and annotate a series of videos? If so, you only talk
> about it in the last minutes of the presentation.

The video has many "main points".

> Also, do you expect people new to emacs understand all the
> (commmand args) staff?

Yes, in my view of "what is Emacs" the first thing that people need to
learn is eval-last-sexp and its more convenient variants. See the page
10 of my slides for the EmacsConf2019:

  http://angg.twu.net/LATEX/2019emacsconf.pdf#page=10

> I still fail to understand what is the advantage of eev compared to Org
> or Hyperbole (which also provides context-free actionable links).

Here are my current hypotheses: 1) my brain is wired in an atypical
way; 2) about 95% of the people find Org "easy" and "fun", and eev
makes no sense to them - and about 5% of the people find Org very
hard, and they find eev much "easier" and "more fun" than Org.

I explained this in the eev-wconfig video, starting from 33:27:

  (find-2022eevwconfigvideo "33:27")
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm29XSdGCXw#t=33m27s

That part mentions this other video,

  Title: Org for Non-Users (2021)
  MP4:   http://angg.twu.net/eev-videos/2021-org-for-non-users.mp4
  YT:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh5Wz9Vh_XM
  Page:  http://angg.twu.net/2021-org-for-non-users.html
  Comment: On why Org and eev follow opposite principles.
  Date:    2021dec11
  Length:  10:08
  Index:   http://angg.twu.net/.emacs.videos.html#2021orgfornonusers
           (find-1stclassvideoindex "2021orgfornonusers")

and sort of summarizes it. Let me copy here the subtitles of that part
of the eev-wconfig video:

  So: in this video I explained why I have
  always found Org so hard to learn...
  and the thing is that many things in Org
  are implemented in ways that i
  don't understand,
  and practically every time that I try to
  learn more more features of org
  I get stuck, because I start to ask
  questions like:
  hey, how is this implemented?
  And I get stuck trying to trying to
  answer these questions, that are not
  typical user questions...
  and
  I get stuck on that instead of
  simply learning how to use the features
  of Org as a user.
  So: I find
  Org confusing because my brain is wired
  in a weird way...
  and, in the language of black boxes what
  happens
  is that when I try to learn Org...
  I try to learn a new feature, I see lots
  of black boxes,
  I try to open these black boxes, and I
  fail miserably... and I get frustrated and
  exhausted I, do not learn the feature and
  I postpone learning the feature
  to another day, and in the other day I try
  it again, I see other black boxes, I try
  to understand them again, and blah blah,
  rinse and repeat...
  and I also have exactly the same
  relationship with M-x customized, that
  the standard way in Emacs to configure
  certain things
  and to customize certain things.
  Let me show how customize works
  We can either type M-x customize or
  run this sexp here, that
  simulates what happens when we type
  M-x customize.
  Customize creates a temporary buffer
  like this one...
  it has this mysterious field here, it
  has parts that are not editable - for
  example, if I type a letter here - oops
  if I type a letter here
  it says "you can't edit this part of the
  Custom buffer"... it has buttons,
  it has different fonts, different colors,
  it has links, and so on...
  and if I follow these links in
  the right way I
  can get to places like this one
  which is a
  sub menu with sub options,
  I can
  get to a place like
  this one
  that
  offers many
  things
  that can be configured, each one with an
  explanation...
  I can execute things like this one, that
  opens this page, in which I can customize
  a
  variable...
  and things like this in which I can
  customize a face to change its color, to
  change its font... and so on -
  and for me all these things - all these
  buttons, this rectangle here, in which I
  can
  put text
  all these things are...
  magic - and they are black boxes that I
  find very hard to open.
  And over the years I have experimented
  with several alternatives to
  customize that "use less magic"...
  I've documented some of my attempts in
  this page here,
  and
  this thing that I'm presenting now -
  eev-wconfig.el - this is
  the next step: it uses all the ideas in
  this page,
  and a few other new ideas.


> I recommend recording a much shorted video demonstrating a singe task
> you perform using eev. No need to side track explaining Elisp syntax. No
> need to show troubleshooting. No need to show things users "are not
> supposed to understand". No need to show initial configuration with all
> possible caveats.

There are lots of short demos scattered through the videos... here's
one that has subtitles. If you run this

  # Index: http://angg.twu.net/.emacs.videos.html#2022pict2elua
  # Info:  (find-1stclassvideo-links "2022pict2elua")
  export    S=$HOME/snarf
  mkdir -p $S/http/angg.twu.net/eev-videos/
  cd       $S/http/angg.twu.net/eev-videos/
  wget -nc  http://angg.twu.net/eev-videos/2022-pict2e-lua.mp4
  wget -nc  http://angg.twu.net/eev-videos/2022-pict2e-lua.vtt
  mpv $S/http/angg.twu.net/eev-videos/2022-pict2e-lua.mp4

then you can use the keys [ and ] to make mpv change the playing
speed, and you can watch the full 8-minute video in just one or two
minutes. If you prefer to watch it on Youtube the link is this one:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiHsUhGVLGM

> No need to side track explaining Elisp syntax. No
> need to show troubleshooting. No need to show things users "are not
> supposed to understand". No need to show initial configuration with all
> possible caveats.

Can you explain these "no need"s? Except for the red stars and anchors
_all_ the "markup language" of eev consists of explicit sexps...

> You argue that Org is a "black box", but your code is also a black box
> in a sense that one needs to read the "wconfig" files (AFAIU). How is it
> different compared to Org written in Elisp following the usual
> documentation conventions described in the Elisp manual?

Eev-wconfig is only needed for configuring things on Windows. On, say,
Debian, people only need to install google-chrome (obs: it's easy to
use other browsers instead), and do this:

  sudo apt-get install wget xpdf pdftotext mpv

after that all the features will work.

Here are two examples of cases in which I stumbled on black boxes that
I never managed to open properly, one in Org and one in Hyperbole:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2021-12/msg00674.html
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2022-02/threads.html#00098
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/hyperbole-users/2020-09/msg00012.html

Cheers,
  Eduardo Ochs
  http://angg.twu.net/#eev
  http://angg.twu.net/#eev-blogposts