Re: Gitlab Migration

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 04.09.2021 17:33, Óscar Fuentes wrote:

> If this is about replicating what other popular text editors do, why not
> simply create emulation modes? sublime-mode, vs-code-mode, etc. Emacs
> has a long tradition doing that (see the successive Vi(m) emulation
> modes.)

I think it's more about being a little less alien right away (which is 
where a lot of first users will bounce off), and about showing off some 
of the little niceties that others have but we have disabled (to make 
first good impression), like show-paren and the electric modes.

And having some better defaults, where we for some reasons cannot 
incorporate them in the stock configuration.

> I'll mention that the proposed configuration theming has an important
> side-effect: in practice, the user no longer is using Emacs, but a
> customization that makes difficult to provide support and benefiting
> from existing published resources. An example: if someone posts a
> question on help-emacs, the first thing I need to know if he is using
> one of those config themes; if the answer is "yes", most likely I will
> unable to assist him because I must know the theme and adapt my
> instructions in accordance.

One idea was that report-emacs-bug would mention the enabled profiles. 
Some assistance for help ports, and for other means of bug reporting 
(other bug trackers, e.g. for third-party packages) could be added too.

> IMAO all those arguments about newcomers being turned off by weird
> defaults is overblown. I agree that several defaults could be better,
> but Emacs should not bend over to compete with the low-effort,
> install-and-run editors. IMHO Emacs target audience should de the
> high-effort, high-productivity individuals.

I disagree with that: Emacs can fit lots of different users.

> Things like C-x are not so
> important on that context.

...but I would prefer to move the cua-mode setting to a separate profile 
too. Or have it like a separate checkbox in the wizard, or similar.