3 ms·

If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config?

nobody9999 6y ago
>If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config? Why is it important to prioritize beginners over experienced users? I can understand that point of view in the context of a new product, or one that is struggling to make money from an existing product. But last I checked, Emacs is free software, with no impetus for increasing "user counts" or "market share," since "revenue" from "sales" of GNU Emacs remains the same regardless of either. Perhaps you might ask the fine folks over at Lugaru Software, ltd.[0] why they haven't done so. Espeially since they've been selling their emacs-based Epsilon Programmer's Editor since 1984[1][2], which, incidentally, was before GNU Emacs was available for any desktop computers. [0] https://www.lugaru.com/ https://www.lugaru.com/ [1] https://www.lugaru.com/history.html https://www.lugaru.com/history.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_(text_editor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_(text_editor)
- CJefferson 6y ago
  > Why is it important to prioritize beginners over experienced users? In my opinion, because experienced users know how to configure their editor while beginners don't. If "every expert" has their own tuned configuration, they really shouldn't care what the defaults are. It is (in my opinion) crazy to have options designed to make a system easier to use, which have to be searched out and turned on. If Emacs doesn't care about user counts or market share, great. Emacs users can stop posting about it, and it can quietly fade away.

3 ms·

If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config?

by CJefferson 6y ago

nobody9999 6y ago
>If it's so easy to switch, and a beginner is more likely to want it on, why not set it on by default and let everyone who wants it off put it in their config? Why is it important to prioritize beginners over experienced users? I can understand that point of view in the context of a new product, or one that is struggling to make money from an existing product. But last I checked, Emacs is free software, with no impetus for increasing "user counts" or "market share," since "revenue" from "sales" of GNU Emacs remains the same regardless of either. Perhaps you might ask the fine folks over at Lugaru Software, ltd.[0] why they haven't done so. Espeially since they've been selling their emacs-based Epsilon Programmer's Editor since 1984[1][2], which, incidentally, was before GNU Emacs was available for any desktop computers. [0] https://www.lugaru.com/ https://www.lugaru.com/ [1] https://www.lugaru.com/history.html https://www.lugaru.com/history.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_(text_editor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_(text_editor)
- CJefferson 6y ago
  > Why is it important to prioritize beginners over experienced users? In my opinion, because experienced users know how to configure their editor while beginners don't. If "every expert" has their own tuned configuration, they really shouldn't care what the defaults are. It is (in my opinion) crazy to have options designed to make a system easier to use, which have to be searched out and turned on. If Emacs doesn't care about user counts or market share, great. Emacs users can stop posting about it, and it can quietly fade away.