Eli Zaretskii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> From: "Drew Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:43:03 -0700 >> >> The philosophy is that the default Emacs should >> work well enough for the new user not to be >> bothered by customization for quite some time. >> >> It's not a question of bother. Setting preferences in most UI applications >> is not something users do only exceptionally and only because they are >> bothered. This is all the more true of Emacs customization. Customization is >> a part of normal Emacs use even more than it is part of the use of other >> apps. Emacs *is* customization, in oh so many ways. Do you want to >> customize? Get Emacs. It doesn't matter what - you can customize anything >> with Emacs. > > My point is that customization is a sufficiently advanced issue, so > new users should get used to Emacs and read the docs for some time > before they embark on the never-ending customize adventure. > Meanwhile, they have the Options menu to start with.
In general, I agree that customization is an advanced issue. However, I think key bindings are an exception. Learning a new set of keybindings is a significant impediment to adopting Emacs. Other IDE's have several sets of keybindings that are easy to choose; keybindings that mimic other popular IDEs are available. I don't have much experience with those (I've used Emacs for a _long_ time :), so I don't know how well that works in practice. But it does seem like something similar could be done (perhaps has been done?) for Emacs. I know there is some sort of "Windows 32" keybinding; as others have pointed out, that's not well defined. Perhaps some discussion of the sets of "popular" keybindings that have been developed would be appropriate in the tutorial/top level Emacs manual. When I introduce someone to Emacs, I give them my keybindings as an example, and offer to fix/change anything that bothers them. That helps a lot in getting past the initial learning curve. The menu also helps. -- -- Stephe
