Re: emacs Vs Eclipse?

From: Bent C Dalager (bcd_at_pvv.ntnu.no)
Date: 10/19/04 

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 08:56:43 +0000 (UTC)

In article <u7jpnsvfs.fsf@standardandpoors.com>,
Galen Boyer <galenboyer@hotpop.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, bcd@pvv.ntnu.no wrote:
>
>>From the first description, I thought I was going to get a place
>where the available choices were all summarized.

The basic difference between emacs and Windows in this regard is that
emacs shows a flat view of all subcommands while Windows gives you a
hierarchical interface to browse all subcommands. I am not sure that
one is superior to the other, they are just different.

>
>Well, when coming from Emacs, it seems quite poor.

That is just because, coming from emacs, you have unnaturally high
standards :-)

>> If I understand you correctly, you are saying that if you've
>> learned one emacs mode, then you've learnt them all (to an
>> extent).
>
>Yes, this was what the example was trying to explain and "to an
>extent" is a correct characterization.

I have a feeling that this effect largely stems from the fact that
Windows applications have a wider range of different functionality
than what emacs modes do. In emacs, all you do is manipulate text and
so it is within the realm of possibility to define some common
commands that will always be useful one way or the other. In Windows,
you manipulate all sorts of information that is presented in all sorts
of ways and so defining such common functionality is more
difficult. Now, it can be seen as a misfeature of Windows that it
insists on showing anything that conceivably _can_ be shown as
graphics, as graphics. It remains, however, that some things are just
that much more convenient to work with in some non-textual
representation (e.g., video editing) and I'm not sure how well a
common set of commands would translate between such applications.

>> That really depends how knowledgable he is. Those that have
>> bothered to learn the F2 key probably use it a lot, but I have
>> known some very heavy Excel users that just looked at me in
>> amazement when I showed it to them.
>
>I would say that this is the fault of windows. It should be part
>of the users experience that she is constantly looking for the
>keystrokes to accomplish things, to the point that she's
>frustrated when the keystrokes are so cumbersome that she resorts
>to the mouse.

This is what I refer to as the lack of inclination to use the
keyboard. My theory is that since people are incredibly lazy (*) and
since Windows offers a bloody-obvious-but-inefficient interface,
people just keep using that inefficient interface. The fact that
Windows _also_ has an easy-and-efficient interface is completely lost
on them as they simply don't care enough to find out about it. By and
large, the shortcut keys are there in plain sight for them to see
(Excel's F2 key being a notable exception) and so I can only blame the
users for not making use of them.

Alternatively, the blame can be put on whoever trained them and forgot
to mention what the underlined characters mean and what the "Ctrl-x"
to the right of the menu text means.

I don't really think a super-duper emacs-like type of keyboard support
would help these people at all because if they can't be bothered to
learn that F3 means "search" then they certainly can't be bothered to
find out that Alt-E Ctrl-H means "tell me about all commands starting
with Alt-E".

(*) Lazy in a bad "can't be bothered to find out" way rather than lazy
in a good "got to find out how to use this with the least bother" way.

Cheers
        Bent D 

-- 
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

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