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Can't remember where I read the story, Steve Yegge perhaps. But they were talking about how where they worked secretaries actually used Emacs apps developed by

Can't remember where I read the story, Steve Yegge perhaps. But they were talking about how where they worked secretaries actually used Emacs apps developed by the IT department and, over time, the secretaries started to extend the apps with Elisp.

ken 8y ago
Millions of people used WP5, with its cryptic codes and huge keyboard overlays. I don’t believe that’s any easier than Emacs (or HTML). People can figure things out, when they have to.
- gmfawcett 8y ago
  Cryptic, yes, but discoverable! Recently I was trying to help someone fix their bizarrely broken Word document, and I would have given my right arm for "F5 Reveal Codes."
  - mkesper 8y ago
    Emacs is quite discoverable, too. Spacemacs even more, I think.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Yup. It's called a "self-documenting editor" for a reason :). From built-in help on every command, function, variable and keybinding, through apropos and tutorial, through a full-length manual - all available off-line, in the editor - it's easy to get your bearings around using and customizing Emacs. That is, once you adopt the old-school, pre-web notion of software actually having documentation.
  - roel_v 8y ago
    It's right there in the toolbar, the "P"-ish looking icon.
    - gmfawcett 8y ago
      You mean the paragraph mark, "¶"? The Show All feature in Word will highlight whitespace, tabs, newlines, which is helpful. But in WordPerfect, Reveal Codes would show much more than that: style changes, image and table introductions, etc. It was much more like looking at the HTML source of a Web page in a Web Developer tool -- not only could you see the tags, but you could modify and remove them easily and precisely.
emarsden 8y ago
That's from Richard Stallman. “Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.” https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html
kamaal 8y ago
Its from RMS, not Steve Yegge: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html It was Bernie Greenberg, who discovered that it was (2). He wrote a version of Emacs in Multics MacLisp, and he wrote his commands in MacLisp in a straightforward fashion. The editor itself was written entirely in Lisp. Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.
bachmeier 8y ago
Steve Yegge told this story: > Mailman was the Customer Service customer-email processing application for ... four, five years? A long time, anyway. It was written in Emacs. Everyone loved it. > People still love it. To this very day, I still have to listen to long stories from our non-technical folks about how much they miss Mailman. I'm not shitting you. Last Christmas I was at an Amazon party, some party I have no idea how I got invited to, filled with business people, all of them much prettier and more charming than me and the folks I work with here in the Furnace, the Boiler Room of Amazon. Four young women found out I was in Customer Service, cornered me, and talked for fifteen minutes about how much they missed Mailman and Emacs, and how Arizona (the JSP replacement we'd spent years developing) still just wasn't doing it for them. https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel
- erikcw 8y ago
  Ever since reading that essay years ago I’ve been perennially curious about Mailman. Would be really cool to see a screencast or even just some screenshots of what the UX was like.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 8y ago
Tech people have a problem with assuming that everyone is an idiot, mostly because it’s easier to do half-assed work aimed at a moron. Legacy text based solutions that survived are usually much better designed by people who actually spoke to the users.
- Swalden123 8y ago
  The thing that has irritated me often is not that people are idiots but they often lack of self belief that they could learn to do something. The key here is the secretaries didn’t realise they were learning to code, but if you told them to learn to code they would most likely make excuses.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Of course. You pay your admin $18/hr and pay a programmer $50. People tend to assume their place.
- protomyth 8y ago
  We bought a new iSeries mainly because the accounting staff said, point blank, the GUI on the replacement system was total crap. The green screen is efficient and they can get everything done quickly without moving a hand off the keyboard.
  - 0x445442 8y ago
    Exactly. Go to any retailer with these green screen Point of Sale systems and watch them wiz around the keyboard.
anoncake 8y ago
I wonder if people also get better at math if they don't notice it's math.

ken 8y ago

Millions of people used WP5, with its cryptic codes and huge keyboard overlays. I don’t believe that’s any easier than Emacs (or HTML). People can figure things out, when they have to.

gmfawcett 8y ago
Cryptic, yes, but discoverable! Recently I was trying to help someone fix their bizarrely broken Word document, and I would have given my right arm for "F5 Reveal Codes."
- mkesper 8y ago
  Emacs is quite discoverable, too. Spacemacs even more, I think.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Yup. It's called a "self-documenting editor" for a reason :). From built-in help on every command, function, variable and keybinding, through apropos and tutorial, through a full-length manual - all available off-line, in the editor - it's easy to get your bearings around using and customizing Emacs. That is, once you adopt the old-school, pre-web notion of software actually having documentation.
- roel_v 8y ago
  It's right there in the toolbar, the "P"-ish looking icon.
  - gmfawcett 8y ago
    You mean the paragraph mark, "¶"? The Show All feature in Word will highlight whitespace, tabs, newlines, which is helpful. But in WordPerfect, Reveal Codes would show much more than that: style changes, image and table introductions, etc. It was much more like looking at the HTML source of a Web page in a Web Developer tool -- not only could you see the tags, but you could modify and remove them easily and precisely.

emarsden 8y ago

That's from Richard Stallman. “Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.” https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html

kamaal 8y ago

Its from RMS, not Steve Yegge: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html It was Bernie Greenberg, who discovered that it was (2). He wrote a version of Emacs in Multics MacLisp, and he wrote his commands in MacLisp in a straightforward fashion. The editor itself was written entirely in Lisp. Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.

bachmeier 8y ago

Steve Yegge told this story: > Mailman was the Customer Service customer-email processing application for ... four, five years? A long time, anyway. It was written in Emacs. Everyone loved it. > People still love it. To this very day, I still have to listen to long stories from our non-technical folks about how much they miss Mailman. I'm not shitting you. Last Christmas I was at an Amazon party, some party I have no idea how I got invited to, filled with business people, all of them much prettier and more charming than me and the folks I work with here in the Furnace, the Boiler Room of Amazon. Four young women found out I was in Customer Service, cornered me, and talked for fifteen minutes about how much they missed Mailman and Emacs, and how Arizona (the JSP replacement we'd spent years developing) still just wasn't doing it for them. https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel

erikcw 8y ago
Ever since reading that essay years ago I’ve been perennially curious about Mailman. Would be really cool to see a screencast or even just some screenshots of what the UX was like.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Spooky23 8y ago

Tech people have a problem with assuming that everyone is an idiot, mostly because it’s easier to do half-assed work aimed at a moron. Legacy text based solutions that survived are usually much better designed by people who actually spoke to the users.

Swalden123 8y ago
The thing that has irritated me often is not that people are idiots but they often lack of self belief that they could learn to do something. The key here is the secretaries didn’t realise they were learning to code, but if you told them to learn to code they would most likely make excuses.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Of course. You pay your admin $18/hr and pay a programmer $50. People tend to assume their place.
protomyth 8y ago
We bought a new iSeries mainly because the accounting staff said, point blank, the GUI on the replacement system was total crap. The green screen is efficient and they can get everything done quickly without moving a hand off the keyboard.
- 0x445442 8y ago
  Exactly. Go to any retailer with these green screen Point of Sale systems and watch them wiz around the keyboard.

anoncake 8y ago

I wonder if people also get better at math if they don't notice it's math.