> From: Dan Price <dp at eng.sun.com>
...
> > So, insted we send these beginners off believing that gmacs is the way
> > it is. I don't think this is better.
>
> To me it sounds like you are saying that beginners must be forced
> through a steep learning curve because it's "good for them."
Not at all.
I'm saying its bad to mislead them into thinking gmacs is "THE WAY".
> We should offer customers both *choice* and *wonderful defaults*.
> Choosing "none" has no impact on the former and fails the latter.
>
> I feel *great* about shipping a stylistic choice. Kudos, Roland.
Mostly a reasonable opinion. However, where is that "*wonderful
defaults*"? You certainly aren't saying that gmacs is *wonderful*
are you?
Oh right, that's your preferred **style**. 8^)
I think gmacs (in general) sucks. I'll grant you that its just my
opinion and based on some historical artifacts that are no longer
relevant, but its my opinion either way.
Of course, the *wonderfulness* of gmacs isn't the issue. Its the
pushing of a stylistic default.
I was prepaired to "go with the flow", until I saw Richard Lowe's mail.
It appears that defaults of "gmacs", "vi" and "none" are equally prevalent
in other systems. If we want to help the newbee, being consistant across
systems is the best way to accomplish that. Since "gmacs", "vi" and "none"
are about equally prevelent, I guess we can't do that. The Pro's I see
for each choice are:
none: Pushes no style and matches 33% of the data we have.
vi: Matches the "momentum leader" (Ubuntu), matches historical
Solaris and matches 33% of the data we have.
gmacs: Matches 33% of the data we have.
Humm, this is nearly a three way tie, but upon closer examination, gmacs
is in last place. Much to my surprize, "vi" appears to be the winner.
Its amazing what real data can show. Thanks Richard!
- jek3
