The Modernization of Emacs: terminology buffer and keybinding

[blmblm at myrealbox.com]

In article <m31wg6lre9.fsf at borud.not>,
Bjorn Borud  <borud-news at borud.no> wrote:
> [Giorgos Keramidas <keramida at ceid.upatras.gr>]
> | 
> | Educating the user to avoid confusion in this and other cases of made
> | up, 'user-friendly' descriptions is not a good enough answer.
> 
> there are two types of "user friendly".  there's "user friendly" and
> then there is "beginner friendly" which is often mislabeled.  the
> latter is more important for applications which are to be used
> casually.  like utilities you only use once or twice per year -- those
> need to be "beginner friendly".

Maybe this is an okay point at which to mention one of my favorite
bits of commentary on this subject.  It's an interview with Leslie
Lamport (originator of LaTeX, among other things) in which he
talks about the needs of beginners versus the needs of experts,
and how the latter are often neglected:

http://research.microsoft.com/users/lamport/pubs/lamport-latex-interview.pdf

(Yes, he works (worked?  but this seems current) for Microsoft.
Astonishing.)

Asked whether whether LaTeX is hard to use, he replies "It's easy
to use -- if you're one of the 2% of the population who thinks
logically and can read an instruction manual.  [otherwise not]"

> for applications you are likely to use for prolonged periods of time
> (like programming, video editing, music production etc), it does not
> make sense to optimize for "beginner friendly".  at least not at the
> cost of making the application less "user friendly".
> 
> applications you spend a lot of time using are worth an investment in
> learning how to use them.  what creates friction in an application you
> know reasonably well is when common tasks are fiddly.  for instance,
> while menus are often good for casual use and lower the initial
> threshold for absolute beginners, depending heavily on menu navigation
> becomes too fiddly if you are performing a certain task 2-3 times per
> minute.  it is not _user_ friendly.

Sing it, brother.

(I'm a vim fan myself, but my thinking is that these days emacs
and vi(m) people should be banding together against a common enemy
rather than carrying on the fine old tradition of arguing with
each other.  We have in common a preference, maybe, for learning
one editor really well and using it for everything.)

-- 
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer:  I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.