On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Terry Brown <[email protected]>wrote:
I haven't contributed to this thread because I still struggle with a > concise view of what Leo is. Sometimes I think of it as a multitool > > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Victorinox_Multitool.jpg/800px-Victorinox_Multitool.jpg > > but this analogy breaks down because "in real life", a multitool > is typically great if you have nothing else but not as good as the > specialized tools it replaces. There is something truly strange about this situation. Terry and I and many other Leonistas are passionate about Leo. And not in the utterly debased advertising sense of the word. If you doubt this, read the testimonials: http://leoeditor.com/preliminaries.html#what-people-are-saying-about-leoYou will be amazed at what you read. I was. The vim testimonials are positive, but *so* bland in comparison. http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/quotes.html And I haven't found an equivalent page for Emacs! And yet *none* of us seem to be able to explain exactly where the excitement is coming from! How bizarre is that! > > In some ways Leo is like Emacs, but with a modern GUI, Python instead > > of Lisp, and a more useful core data structure (outline instead of text > > buffers). > All true. All features ;-) We have to translate these into benefits. what about > > Leo scripts have full access to all outline data, to Leo's internal > code and state, and to Leo's GUI controls. > Better. Still features, but they could lead us to the *benefits* that excite us so. BTW, having programming be fun, exciting, perhaps even addictive is a benefit, not a feature. Neither one will mean much to some people, but the second will be a > stronger hook for people who do understand what you're getting at. > We are on the brink of a breakthrough. The conversation has refocused our attention on benefits, not features. When we identify the benefits, we win. Here is my preliminary list of benefits. The stuff in parentheses are the features that enable the benefit. - Faster work flow (clones, per-node scripting, API) - Clearer vision and understanding of complex data, including computer programs (outline organization is everywhere) - Fantastically powerful scripting (each node/tree can be a script or external file, scripts have easy access to outlines and Leo's code via the API and Leo's plugin architecture.) - More fun! Leo opens a new world to explore. - New directions in programming and organizing data (@test, @graph, @rst, @url ETC, ETC.) True, newbies will have no idea what the enabling features mean. I'm tempted to stress the "sizzle". And maybe we should. I discussed this with my close friend, Phil Straus, this morning. Some ideas that arose: - Stress that org mode and vimoutline mode are no substitute for Leo - Put benefits in the places that matter, namely the home page, the main tutorial page and the preface. - (Maybe) Put testimonials in the places that matter? - (Maybe) Put testimonials throughout tutorial? - (Maybe) Put relevant benefit on each tutorial page? Edward -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
