On 02/09/17 17:46, davidson@freevolt.org wrote: > I somehow doubt that you yourself find Emacs or Vim "difficult to > use", or believe their design is "arcane". (Of course, I might well be > mistaken. I'm only guessing.) I use GNU Emacs. I am being honest when I say that it is difficult to use and arcane (obviously according to my perception). I use it because of the configurability and because I use some extensions that are specific for Emacs (mainly SLIME and HOL mode). The reason I find Emacs difficult is that for any non-trivial action you want to perform, you have to read the documentation and *memorize* the key bindings or command names. Nearly all modern editors make obvious how to use them through the GUI icons. Emacs does this to a very limited extent. Also Emacs requires significant customization. Certainly it *works* “out of the box” but it is not comfortable to use in that condition. For example: If I had not read the Emacs wiki I would still be switching buffers and finding files the old way (C-x b and then type the name of the buffer), which is extremely tedious. If I had not read the manual, I would hardly have figured the command “delete-trailing-whitespace”, which I use often. > When, many years later, I developed a greater interest in computers, I > was happy to discover that > > 1. I hadn't been taught only how to ride a tricycle, but had been > riding a full-fledged bicycle all along, and > > 2. I would never need to learn to use another text-editor again, if > I didn't want to do so. Assuming that people in the OP's library is representative of the general population, then most people in that library will never “develop a greater interest in computers” like you and me. Run-of-the-mill users do not care if software is very powerful, configurable, reliable, or other technical merits. They want something that is so simple to use that they will never need to even glance at the manual. Microsoft and Apple deliver that and that is why they have had so much commercial success. -- Do not eat animals; respect them as you respect people. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+(become+OR+eat)+vegan
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