Re: New maintainer

[David Kastrup]

Tom <address@hidden> writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org> writes:
>> 
>> Naturally -- because I think freedom is more important than technical
>> progress.  Proprietary software offers plenty of technical "progress",
>> but since I won't surrender my freedom to use it, as far as I'm
>> concerned it is no progress at all.
>
> Then there is no sense talking about competing with IDEs.

Under the premise that Emacs' only user is Richard, this is not a
competition.

> IDEs provide cutting edge features in the areas of completion and
> refactoring and most users will only choose Emacs over an IDE if it
> provides a a comparable level of these features.

Emacs will rarely ever be "cutting edge" but that does not mean that
there is no point in improving it.  And the features with which
proprietary software is competing among its ilk are certainly something
worthwhile to consider for such improvement.

> Most users won't switch just because of the freedom aspect. They will
> switch if Emacs is at least as good in these areas as their IDEs, so
> if competing is the goal then catching up with popular IDEs
> technically is unaviodable.

Competing is not the goal.  Improving Emacs is.  There are a number of
areas in which Emacs is so much different than other systems that there
is no competition at all.  But that does not mean that those areas are
not worth improving for improvement's sake.

-- 
David Kastrup