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* converting people to Emacs and org-mode
@ 2013-04-09  8:10 42 147
  2013-04-09  8:29 ` Suvayu Ali
                   ` (6 more replies)
  0 siblings, 7 replies; 41+ messages in thread
From: 42 147 @ 2013-04-09  8:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: emacs-orgmode


Hello mailing list,

This might be considered off-topic.

The question is the title: have you been able to convert many people to
Emacs / org-mode? Are converts all programmers, or those versed in
programming? -- Or have you converted non-programmers, e.g., anyone who
edits text for a living?

It's impossible for me to have a conversation these days without
referring to org-mode. Since I use it for practically everything,
there's no way to avoid raising the topic. However, I do find it
difficult to convert people. I send them video captures showing off the
features, give real-time demonstrations, etc., and offer to work them
through the installation and lead them up the steep Emacs learning curve
-- but thus far, I've only gotten a couple people to adopt it. And that
after relentless advocacy.

Anyway, apologies if this seems to clutter the already highly active
mailing list. But I do think questions of proselytization (because we
/are/ talking religion here) is important.

42

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 41+ messages in thread
* Re: converting people to Emacs and org-mode
@ 2013-04-09 23:59 42 147
  2013-04-10  7:37 ` Bastien
  2013-04-10 10:01 ` Suvayu Ali
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 41+ messages in thread
From: 42 147 @ 2013-04-09 23:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Org Mode

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> Not when they're your employees!

> Only half joking,

+1 for the serious half. Totalitarianism is underrated.

> this confirms that different people have wildly different usage patterns

That is absolutely true. I didn't care about org-mode until a friend showed
me his Shakespeare.org file. I pressed tab on "Shakespeare" and it was like
hearing the Master of Puppets opening riff for the first time.

I've had one successful convert of a total non-programmer. He was studying
German, and I'd watch him in Firefox with ten tabs open trying to translate
a passage of Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. So then I showed him how to split
the screen in Emacs -- German original on top, English on the bottom -- and
how to fetch definitions on the fly from a dictionary server. Got him
hooked in a second.

I agree that working someone through Windows poses unique problems. I had
to debase myself and fire up Windows for the first time in years.

However, on the issue of tutorials, I did save my entire IM logs. It might
be an interesting presentation technique -- to read a real, natural
step-by-step working through of Emacs with someone completely computer
illiterate. It took two hours to get him to map a shortcut to a particular
file and get it to work. And there is so much knowledge and intuition we
take for granted: for example, to a lot of computer illiterate people, a
find-file function is "magical." So is a .emacs. He didn't understand why
he could newline arbitrarily before inserting new code, e.g., "So wait, why
is this file just empty? How does writing stuff here do anything to Emacs?"
It was very interesting psychologically to remind oneself of this state of
mind. To most people a program is a shortcut icon on the desktop, not a
bunch of disparate files that coalesce into something like Emacs.

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 41+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2013-04-23  9:48 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 41+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2013-04-09  8:10 converting people to Emacs and org-mode 42 147
2013-04-09  8:29 ` Suvayu Ali
2013-04-09  8:47   ` Eric Abrahamsen
2013-04-13  8:16   ` Karl Voit
2013-04-09  8:46 ` Thorsten Jolitz
2013-04-09  8:51   ` Carsten Dominik
2013-04-09 10:21     ` Moritz Ulrich
2013-04-09 10:30       ` Thorsten Jolitz
2013-04-09 11:05         ` Torsten Wagner
2013-04-22 14:26           ` Eric S Fraga
2013-04-22 15:20             ` Loyall, David
2013-04-22 17:11             ` Bastien
2013-04-22 19:35               ` Sebastien Vauban
2013-04-22 20:03                 ` John Hendy
2013-04-23  5:19                 ` Achim Gratz
2013-04-23  6:38                   ` Thorsten Jolitz
2013-04-22 21:50               ` Samuel Wales
2013-04-23  7:29               ` Carsten Dominik
2013-04-23  9:01                 ` OT: Emacs screen colors (was: converting people to Emacs and org-mode) Karl Voit
2013-04-23  9:28               ` converting people to Emacs and org-mode Eric S Fraga
2013-04-23  9:37                 ` Jude DaShiell
2013-04-23  9:48                   ` Eric S Fraga
2013-04-09 11:40         ` Bastien
2013-04-09  8:48 ` Carsten Dominik
2013-04-09  9:50   ` Bastien
2013-04-09 10:03     ` Russell Adams
2013-04-09 12:27       ` Eric Abrahamsen
2013-04-09 15:31         ` Christopher Allan Webber
2013-04-09 16:28           ` Sebastien Vauban
2013-04-12 22:17             ` Eric Schulte
2013-04-09 18:33         ` Loyall, David
2013-04-09 18:42           ` Chris Gray
2013-04-09 14:42 ` Gunnar Wolf
2013-04-09 21:03   ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-09 20:59 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-09 22:26 ` John Hendy
2013-04-10 12:03   ` Doug Lewan
2013-04-13  8:43 ` Karl Voit
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2013-04-09 23:59 42 147
2013-04-10  7:37 ` Bastien
2013-04-10 10:01 ` Suvayu Ali

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