Global indent

[Rustom Mody]

On Saturday, August 23, 2014 2:38:10 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> > Rob Gaddi :
> >> Emacs and vim both have huge learning curves
> > Really now?
> > When you start emacs, it advises you to start the builtin tutorial.

> You need a tutorial for a text editor???

> If that's supposed to prove how easy Emacs is, you have failed miserably.
> Any application which requires a tutorial should consider it a UI failure.
> Ideally applications should be "intuitive" in the sense that all features
> should be self-explanatory, obvious, and easily discovered. Of course, the
> more complex the application, the less this is likely to be true, but every
> feature that requires explanation is a feature that is begging for
> improvement.

> > That's how I learned it in the 1980's and didn't experience any learning
> > curve.

> No learning curve at all? That means one of two things:

> - either you *instantly* intuited every single Emacs feature the moment you
> started the application; or

> - Emacs has no features at all.

> I'm pretty sure neither of those is the case :-)

> > Nowadays, emacs has a GUI that makes you productive immediately without
> > any keyboard commands. I have seen complete newbies adopt emacs without
> > any kind of duress or hardship.

> I just started up emacs, and got a GUI window with an abstract picture of a
> gnu and a bunch of instructions which I didn't get a chance to read. I
> clicked on the text, and the instructions disappeared. I don't know how to
> get them back. They were replaced with what looks like a blank page ready
> to type into, except it starts with this ominous warning:

> ;; This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for Lisp evaluation.
> ;; If you want to create a file, visit that file with C-x C-f,
> ;; then enter the text in that file's own buffer.

> Why would I be writing notes I don't want to save? If I did, wouldn't I, you
> know, just *not save them* instead of write them in a special buffer
> (whatever that is!)?

> Lisp evaluation? I don't have any speech impediments, thank you very much.

> Okay, so let's try creating a file, using those instructions. I dutifully
> type C-x C-f and, apart from "C-x C-f" appearing on the screen, nothing
> happens. I wait a while in case it's just slow.

> Ah, silly me, I need to *enter* the command to make it happen. So I press
> Enter. Nothing happens except the cursor moves down a line.

> Perhaps Emacs has frozen? The blinking cursor is still blinking, so that's
> unlikely.

> Okay, let's click the blank page icon, the universal symbol for creating a
> new, blank document. That at least is recognisable.

> Well, that's just bizarre. I expected a new document. Instead, I got a
> message in the status bar at the bottom of the page, saying:

> Find file: /home/steve/

> and the blinking cursor. I don't want to find a file, and if I did I would
> use my computer's Find or Search application, not a text editor. So still
> no new document I can type into.

> When all else fails, use the menus. So I try the File menu. It's a bit
> disconcerting that, alone of all the applications I've used on eight
> different platforms (Windows 95, 98, XP, Classic Mac, Mac OS X, Linux with
> Gnome, KDE and Xfce window managers), the mouse pointer points the other
> way when over a menu, but hey, I'm a sophisticated user and I refuse to be
> put off by such a minor, albeit gratuitous, difference. But there is no New
> Document command, and I am stymied again.

> I shall not be defeated by a mere text editor. I click the New Document icon
> again, hoping that what failed last time will succeed this time. But at
> least I am not entirely insane, for although I did not get a new document,
> at least something different occurred: an error message appeared in the
> status bar:

> Command attempted to use minibuffer while in minibuffer

> This is the moment that I decide to give up on Emacs and take up something
> trivial in comparison, like being a Soyuz pilot, если вы знаете, что я имею
> в виду.

emacs = Editor for Middle Aged Computer Scientists - Generally Not Used

vi = a program with two modes -- one in which it beeps and the other in
which it corrupts your file