Re: GNU Emacs raison d'etre

[tomas]

On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 01:07:41AM +0300, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> On 21.05.2020 01:00, Karl Fogel wrote:
> >>In this we're, again, similar to other professional software.
> >Well, I'm not sure exactly what "professional software" means in this 
> >context, but if it means "expects the user to make sustained investment", 
> >then I agree.
> 
> I don't know, Blender? Which has reportedly made some strides in
> usability lately. Other 3D editors and associated programs.

I keep seeing Blender mentioned here. One thing which should
be considered is that Blender was "born" 1994. At that time,
Emacs was around its 19th version and was already 18 -- so
allowed to drink (in some jurisdictions, that is).

So I'd expect a more complex community to have gathered around
Emacs by now.

Basically, I think the main "asset" [1] of a software project
to be it's community. Software can be written and can be thrown
away (and sometimes it's good to throw some software away, or
better, to stash it away for softwar archaeologists to have
fun fifty years from now). The longer a community lives, the
more complex it is to balance out continuity and innovation.

In my eyes, Emacs is doing an outstanding job on that.

Cheers

[1] I always hesitate to describe humans and groups of them
   as "assets". It's cold, cynical HR talk. So if you have
   a better shorthand for me, I'll adopt it Right Now.

-- tomás

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