> On Sep 8, 2020, at 2:48 PM, Göktuğ Kayaalp <self@gkayaalp.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I think everybody would agree on attracting more people to use
>> Emacs—that means more blogs and help, more contributor, etc. And
>> people agree that Emacs isn’t as beginner-friendly as it could be. The
>> problem is what to improve, and how.
>
> Not necessarily. Personally, I don’t see much benefit in trying to
> appeal users that have no background in coding whatsoever, and users who
> wouldn’t really benefit from what Emacs has to offer.
>
>> As the first step, we should collect real experiences from real
>> beginners: someone starts to use Emacs just recently (e.g., less than
>> one year).
>
> The major problem is that someone who fiddled with Emacs now and
> couldn’t make use of it may think differently when a couple years later
> they have some knowledge of programming (not necessarily professionally)
> and some experience with other tools.
>
> Anecdotally, I’ve picked up and quit Emacs multiple times before I
> decided to stay with it. And it’s been more than 6 years now that I’m
> using it for the good part of my computing. What was puzzling and weird
> to me back then is useful and essential to me now.
>
> What I mean is, what is good for newcomers, who are not guaranteed to
> stay, can be irrelevant, not so good, or even off-putting to actual
> users of this package of software. Emacs is a power tool, and like all
> power tools, requires two preconditions to be useful: 1) the user should
> *need* the tool, and 2) the user should be willing to put in the time to
> learn the tool. And a good power tool is designed with user who need
> and use them the most in mind.
>
> IDK. IMHO, we shouldn’t break stuff in Emacs itself, and maybe promote
> distros for people that want a more "modern" experience instead. They
> don’t have the backwards compatibility baggage of Emacs so they will do
> it better than Emacs core nevertheless.
>
> --
> İ. Göktuğ Kayaalp / @cadadr / <https://www.gkayaalp.com/>
> pgp: 024C 30DD 597D 142B 49AC 40EB 465C D949 B101 2427
>

I generally agree with your point. However, what I have in mind is not changing defaults, but rather a configuration wizard, that can prompt user and let him select from Emacs binding vs CUA binding, Emacs undo vs simple undo/redo, themes, etc. I’ve seen such wizard in Intellj Idea, Spacemacs, etc. Something like (just an example):


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Set UI themes:

<some C code>

- [ ] default
- [ ] dark
- [ ] ...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Keybinding notation:

C (control) Ctrl
M (meta) Alt/Option
s (super) Windows/Command
S (shift) Shift

Set keybinding style for copy/paste:

[ ] default

M-w Copy
C-y Paste
C-w Cut

[ ] alternative

C-c Copy
C-v Paste
C-x Cut


[Next] [Skip]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[ ] Enable line numbers

[ ] Use thin cursor

[ ] Disable tool bar

[ ] Disable scroll bar


[Next] [Skip]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Emacs has a powerful (but possibly unintuitive) undo system, where
undo operations themselves are recorded in the undo history, and redo
is done by undoing an previous undo operation.

Set undo style:

[ ] default

C-/ Undo

[ ] linear

C-/ Undo
C-? Redo

[ ] alternative

C-z Undo
C-S-z Redo


[Next] [Skip]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional packages:

[ ] Company

Popup completion.
<gif>


[ ] Ivy

Completion for opening files, executing commands, etc.
<gif>


[ ] Expand-region

Incrementally expand selection.
<gif>


[ ] Which-key

Shows possible keybindings.
<gif>


[Finish] You can re-run this guide by M-x beginner-guide RET


Yuan