| As a person who doesn't even use elvis/vim as their main editor, I have to say: the reason people have such an aversion to it is because of all the years they have been conditioned to accept mediocre user interfaces and computing in general. It's a culture shock, overall. It's like moving from Windows 8.1 to Slackware 14.1. Even if the latter is far more transparent, well designed and productive, it's just so different. You're so used to an inferior paradigm that you react with disgust and/or fear at the sight of something better, and that has been around for even longer. We've figured out most of this stuff ages ago, really. I've seen people flip their shit when I've installed something as dead simple as Linux Mint on one of their family members' computers, considering they only use the machine for web browsing and Skype, which is so much more ergonomic with a *buntu derivative. Then they go on and reinstall Windows, as if trying to rebuild their nest that was so violently disturbed. Conditioning is some powerful stuff. We'd rather stick with goofy point-and-click interfaces that slow us down, rather than invest some time to learn a keystroke-based interface that will make us faster, more productive, and dare I say it... increase our admiration of computing? It's why people want their eyecandy, which most of the time is little more than background noise, than use a tiling WM or something light in general. Dijkstra sardonically quipped that COBOL cripples the mind and BASIC leads to irrecoverable mental mutilation. This goes for most of our modern, consumer-oriented computing, as well. I'm not directing this to the author, specifically. It looks like they tried, at least. We're content with inferiority. Try getting a person who's used to 20 years of QWERTY to switch to DVORAK. It may not be that difficult at all, but it requires stepping out of our comfort zone. And in our staying with the subpar, we've erected a huge wall of inefficient software in the process. It may be invisible to the end user, but to programmers it's all too obvious, if not often admitted. People need a consumer technology detox, I think. Personally, if you want a more standard editor/mini-IDE that conforms to the average person's expectations, go for Geany. At least it isn't proprietary. |
Nope, Slackware 14.1 is not "more well designed and productive". I want a graphics editor with full CMYK proofing support and Smart Objects. Do you have one for your Slackware? Didn't think so. How about a DAW I can collaborate with any major studio, like say Pro Tools? Didn't think so again.
Of course those are MY use cases. But you can't generally talk about it "being more productive" (in general) unless you specify for what uses. For mine, it's very near useless. And that's the case for millions of people too, even if their needs doesn't include Pro Tools or Photoshop. They invariably include other stuff that Gnome/KDE don't give them. And the myth that "most people just use web and email" is also BS. Normal, everyday people, do tons of stuff Linux doesn't cater to well, from wanting to edit their child's birthday video on the PC, to wanting their laptop to sleep when they close the lid.
Slackware 14.1 might be a better for a server OS (but then again Centos and even Ubuntu LTS have eaten its lunch), but not for what lots of people use Windows for.
>Dijkstra sardonically quipped that COBOL cripples the mind and BASIC leads to irrecoverable mental mutilation.
Yeah, but then again he was all theory, and could snark about everything. Most of it is to be taken with huge grains of salt. Not to mention that the snide against those languages is ironic, coming from the guy who gave us ALGOL.
>I'm not directing this to the author, specifically. It looks like they tried, at least. We're content with inferiority. Try getting a person who's used to 20 years of QWERTY to switch to DVORAK. It may not be that difficult at all, but it requires stepping out of our comfort zone.
And what for? To adopt a ho-hum keyboard system, that's presented as a magic bullet for gullible people. DVORAK, the 80+ year old late-night-tv-special of keyboard systems.
http://www.economist.com/node/196071
https://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html