Re: (emacs) Intro [was: Making Emacs popular again with a video]

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 15.05.2020 00:31, excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions. wrote:
> May 14, 2020, 08:04 by address@hidden:
>
>     On 14.05.2020 05:18, excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
>     wrote:
>
>         How's this for a start?
>
>
>     I like it.
>
>     I'd retouch a few phrases, but overall seems like a solid improvement.
>
> Please share!

OK. See below.

> I wrote this:
>
>  1. to volunteer for the task, if people agree it needs doing
>  2. to demonstrate how we can reassess our raison d'etre and scaffold
>     newcomers by presenting it to them explicitly
>
> If this draft, or a revision of it, gets the thumbs up, I will need 
> assistance in submitting it officially.

We could make a new topic for it then. But the maintainer reads these 
threads, too.

On your proposed text:

  built
  from the idea that each key calls a tiny program (or macro)

Keys don't call macros anymore (all commands must be functions, not 
macros). Seems like the meaning of the word "macro" has changed over the 
years.

  GNU Emacs is the GNU project's
  incarnation of the Emacs idea.

...I'm not 100% sure what the idea is. Keys having bindings? I'll admit 
I might have missed that in the original text.

  The documentation even reaches down to the source code
  itself!

What does this mean? Functions having docstrings? Which they do everywhere.

  We love GNU Emacs because we
  feel that no other editing environment rewards sustained user
  investment quite like it.

Personally, I don't love this sentiment. It implies that one must invest 
a lot of time to get something good out of it. I'd rather emphasize 
power, flexibility and interactivity rather than paint a picture of the 
user polishing his Emacs for decades. Which we do, but, well, a lot of 
professionals in different industries do this too with their 
industry-specific tools.