4 ms·

Except that in this case, it's more like "daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone tools"

sparkie 14y ago
xmonad is more like an ultra precision electronic saw. Difficult for most people to use, but amazing productivity tool to the expert. Now he just needs to teach them emacs.
- jgoerzen 14y ago
  I'm saving that for next week. ;-) (seriously.) It's really very simple for a child. C-x C-s, C-x C-c, and arrow keys. All they really need to do. I thought about vim, but I think it would lead to too many confusing situations. I have a printed "cheat sheet" up there for the boys. It has commands and keyboard shortcuts. They sometimes forget it exists, but at least Jacob can read and follow directions on it without any trouble.
  - sparkie 14y ago
    I would give vim a miss - particularly if they'll be hacking xmonad.hs in the near future - emacs has much better Haskell support (I believe). The same is true for dozens of functional languages. I can't be doing with the confusion of multiple editors, so emacs wins for me purely based on the languages it supports. I wish I became familiar with emacs a lot earlier. It took me ages to transition from using IDEs because of the steep learning curve. Oh, and I wish I grew up with a Dvorak keyboard. I was forced to learn it after getting RSI about 8 years ago - but I'm better for it now.
- Produce 14y ago
  In my opinion, save the configuration, XMonad is simpler to use than mouse-based window managers. You can open and close programs, change their layout, move between and resize them. All with, what, 7 shortcuts? With mouse-based WM's there's click to focus, click and drag, right click, lots of buttons and icons everywhere and you have to constantly work to make the relevant information visible. There's a reason why people don't go back after using tiling WM's - they're easier and more efficient to use than their mouse-based counterparts. Consider that mobile phones use a similar approach by getting rid of the concept of windows and they are, by a long shot, easier for most people to get to grips with. Tiling is a similar concept except that more than one application is visible at the same time. The lack of a window stack helps. Navigating a big physical table covered with pieces of paper (i.e. all applications on the same layer, where the table split into segments - aka desktops) is infinitely easier for a human than a stack of paper (i.e. finding something in a binder or book is more annoying and slower).
  - sparkie 14y ago
    They are indeed easier to use, but more difficult to learn. Tiling window managers are like giving someone a control system with no labels on the buttons. Users need to consult a manual to know what they're doing - which isn't something people generally like doing. You don't need a manual to figure out how to use a touchscreen or whatnot though, which is generally why they're preferred by the masses, despite being inferior. The same thing applies to emacs and vim too - they're capable of mostly everything IDEs do and much more, but it's non-obvious how to do things without taking the time to learn, read, search - something that people are less likely to do with age - but kids don't have a problem learning. There's other issues like consistency too. With stacking based UIs you have some consistency built in, but you don't necessarily have it with the tiling window manager and minimal UI applications - take for example the difference in keybindings between xmonad and emacs. Another problem is that some apps can "hijack" your WM keybindings. You can fix those issues by modifying the configs, but that's an even further level of learning that most people have no chance of ever doing.
    - Produce 14y ago
      >but you don't necessarily have it with the tiling window manager and minimal UI applications - take for example the difference in keybindings between xmonad and emacs. There should be a formalised standard for keyboard based navigation. In fact, two standards might be a better approach - vi-like and emacs-like, since each of them caters to one of the major ways that people think. Having said that, with a little bit of work, you can get most of your daily applications to use vi keybindings (plugins for FF, Thunderbird and Chrome, Vim itself, custom keybindings for the WM, vi-mode for Zsh - in combination they create a programmer's version of Zen). Thinking about it, I wonder if peoples' preference for these things might come down to their personality type - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator I'm not aware of any studies attempting to draw correlations between these things but, given how predictable people can be, it wouldn't surprise me if they existed. >You can fix those issues by modifying the configs, but that's an even further level of learning that most people have no chance of ever doing. When it comes down to it, the current generation of hardcore tiling WM's are experimental prototypes paving the way for the desktops of tomorrow. Just as many aspects of functional programming are seeping into popular languages, so tiling window management is seeping into popular desktops. I don't know about OS X but Windows 7, Gnome and KDE all support dragging a window's titlebar to the left-most or right-most edge of the screen to vertically tile it. It's extremely basic but it's an obvious influence.
timtadh 14y ago
What?! it isn't like that at all. I am pretty sure 95% of the programmers on this board use the command line everyday. It isn't "outdated". It is the best tool for a variety of programming related tasks. The average "user" isn't using the commandline today. However, the average "furniture user" doesn't need a set of wood working tools either.
pyre 14y ago
> daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone tools Are you suggesting that if "daddy is a developer" that he's only using a touch screen for development? Or that development of touch screen apps is all a developer does? I'm confused by this statement. Edit: Maybe I'm just not reading this right. Did you mean: daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone[-working] tools or daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone tools [used for woodworking]
dfc 14y ago
Some stone tools? I take it that your father was not a woodworker...

xmonad is more like an ultra precision electronic saw. Difficult for most people to use, but amazing productivity tool to the expert. Now he just needs to teach them emacs.

jgoerzen 14y ago
I'm saving that for next week. ;-) (seriously.) It's really very simple for a child. C-x C-s, C-x C-c, and arrow keys. All they really need to do. I thought about vim, but I think it would lead to too many confusing situations. I have a printed "cheat sheet" up there for the boys. It has commands and keyboard shortcuts. They sometimes forget it exists, but at least Jacob can read and follow directions on it without any trouble.
- sparkie 14y ago
  I would give vim a miss - particularly if they'll be hacking xmonad.hs in the near future - emacs has much better Haskell support (I believe). The same is true for dozens of functional languages. I can't be doing with the confusion of multiple editors, so emacs wins for me purely based on the languages it supports. I wish I became familiar with emacs a lot earlier. It took me ages to transition from using IDEs because of the steep learning curve. Oh, and I wish I grew up with a Dvorak keyboard. I was forced to learn it after getting RSI about 8 years ago - but I'm better for it now.
Produce 14y ago
In my opinion, save the configuration, XMonad is simpler to use than mouse-based window managers. You can open and close programs, change their layout, move between and resize them. All with, what, 7 shortcuts? With mouse-based WM's there's click to focus, click and drag, right click, lots of buttons and icons everywhere and you have to constantly work to make the relevant information visible. There's a reason why people don't go back after using tiling WM's - they're easier and more efficient to use than their mouse-based counterparts. Consider that mobile phones use a similar approach by getting rid of the concept of windows and they are, by a long shot, easier for most people to get to grips with. Tiling is a similar concept except that more than one application is visible at the same time. The lack of a window stack helps. Navigating a big physical table covered with pieces of paper (i.e. all applications on the same layer, where the table split into segments - aka desktops) is infinitely easier for a human than a stack of paper (i.e. finding something in a binder or book is more annoying and slower).
- sparkie 14y ago
  They are indeed easier to use, but more difficult to learn. Tiling window managers are like giving someone a control system with no labels on the buttons. Users need to consult a manual to know what they're doing - which isn't something people generally like doing. You don't need a manual to figure out how to use a touchscreen or whatnot though, which is generally why they're preferred by the masses, despite being inferior. The same thing applies to emacs and vim too - they're capable of mostly everything IDEs do and much more, but it's non-obvious how to do things without taking the time to learn, read, search - something that people are less likely to do with age - but kids don't have a problem learning. There's other issues like consistency too. With stacking based UIs you have some consistency built in, but you don't necessarily have it with the tiling window manager and minimal UI applications - take for example the difference in keybindings between xmonad and emacs. Another problem is that some apps can "hijack" your WM keybindings. You can fix those issues by modifying the configs, but that's an even further level of learning that most people have no chance of ever doing.
  - Produce 14y ago
    >but you don't necessarily have it with the tiling window manager and minimal UI applications - take for example the difference in keybindings between xmonad and emacs. There should be a formalised standard for keyboard based navigation. In fact, two standards might be a better approach - vi-like and emacs-like, since each of them caters to one of the major ways that people think. Having said that, with a little bit of work, you can get most of your daily applications to use vi keybindings (plugins for FF, Thunderbird and Chrome, Vim itself, custom keybindings for the WM, vi-mode for Zsh - in combination they create a programmer's version of Zen). Thinking about it, I wonder if peoples' preference for these things might come down to their personality type - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator I'm not aware of any studies attempting to draw correlations between these things but, given how predictable people can be, it wouldn't surprise me if they existed. >You can fix those issues by modifying the configs, but that's an even further level of learning that most people have no chance of ever doing. When it comes down to it, the current generation of hardcore tiling WM's are experimental prototypes paving the way for the desktops of tomorrow. Just as many aspects of functional programming are seeping into popular languages, so tiling window management is seeping into popular desktops. I don't know about OS X but Windows 7, Gnome and KDE all support dragging a window's titlebar to the left-most or right-most edge of the screen to vertically tile it. It's extremely basic but it's an obvious influence.

timtadh 14y ago

What?! it isn't like that at all. I am pretty sure 95% of the programmers on this board use the command line everyday. It isn't "outdated". It is the best tool for a variety of programming related tasks. The average "user" isn't using the commandline today. However, the average "furniture user" doesn't need a set of wood working tools either.

pyre 14y ago

> daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone tools Are you suggesting that if "daddy is a developer" that he's only using a touch screen for development? Or that development of touch screen apps is all a developer does? I'm confused by this statement. Edit: Maybe I'm just not reading this right. Did you mean: daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone[-working] tools or daddy is a woodworker, so here's some stone tools [used for woodworking]

dfc 14y ago

Some stone tools? I take it that your father was not a woodworker...