WEBVTT
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Hello, everyone. My name is
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Laszlo Krajnikovszkij,
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and today I would like to share
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some ideas about extending
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the model of Emacs to other applications.
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Brief introduction of myself:
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I am from Budapest, Hungary;
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and I have a background
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in Financial Economics,
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but by occupation I run
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a software development company
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where I mostly do product management.
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I try to do most of my work from Emacs.
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I've been using it for the past
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two or three years
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as a computer science hobby
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and this fascinating piece of software
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taught me a lot of different concepts
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about software architecture
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and programming languages,
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and also raised a lot of
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philosophical questions
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about human-computer interaction.
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I've been mostly using it
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for organizing my personal information,
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writing notes and tracking my agenda,
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but occasionally, I've also used it
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for reading and writing code
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and for also reading news, email,
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and browsing the web.
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What do I mean by the 'model' of Emacs?
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For me, the 'model' of Emacs is about
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the interaction model.
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And it's not... Emacs is just a tool
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for interacting with the computer.
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It's sort of a universal interface
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that allows for consistency
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across different apps,
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because everything is brought down to
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an Emacs buffer, which is a
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text-oriented interface,
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but that can have consistent
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keybinding scheme,
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they have consistent color scheme,
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and consistent workflow in general.
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Also, Emacs has a lot of functionality
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and utilizes mnemonic key bindings
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for calling functions,
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which is much more powerful than
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navigating contextual menus
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with a pointer,
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because the functions that are
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repeated the most
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are then ingrained in the muscle memory,
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therefore reducing the lag
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between the thought that is occurring
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in your mind, and its reflection
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on your computer screen.
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And also, Emacs provides
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a huge number of packages
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that can all be inspected and modified,
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and extended, and recombined,
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and just provides the best-possible
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malleable system experience
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that can potentially lead to
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almost any desired setup
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for the end-user.
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So, Emacs is great,
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but I need to use a lot of
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different other tools
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to collaborate with my coworkers,
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with my clients and vendors.
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On a normal day, I would need to be
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switching between five to six
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different web applications
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and chat applications.
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They all have the same flaws.
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They all lack customizability,
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because it was never intended
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by the original developers of the app
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that the end user can tinker
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with the product they're creating.
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But also, those apps are cloud-based,
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and usually not very good for privacy,
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and this also creates limitations
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for offline-based workflows,
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or for in general not relying on
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the internet connection
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to use something.
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All these applications,
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they create a situation
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when there's a lot of context-switching
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between different apps,
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and this context-switching
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comes from different color schemes,
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different workflows in general
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for different apps.
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So, there is always
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this little frame of time
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where you need to orient yourself
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in this other application.
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Of course, over time,
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it gets more automated,
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but still, this context switching
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is very bad for productivity.
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These apps don't support very well
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the keyboard-driven workflows,
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because the default set of keybindings
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is always limited,
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and you always need to resort to
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mouse-driven workflows.
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But Emacs has some issues
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as a tool for work as well.
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First of all, it lacks integration
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with all these tools,
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so I constantly need to be switching
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between Emacs and these applications,
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or basically, my web browser.
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Emacs is very good for text input
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and for editing text,
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but it's not always perfect
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for reading information
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from an Emacs buffer,
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because it doesn't
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render images and HTML properly.
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Also, Emacs lacks performance
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under heavy load,
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so when you try to run
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too many things in parallel,
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the single-threaded nature of Emacs
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just makes it hang.
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For this reason,
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I wouldn't rely on Emacs
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to take care of all my system processes.
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And of course, it has some
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legacy UI limitations
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being a software that was written
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40 years ago.
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This results in a very limited usability
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on mobile and other touch devices.
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I've been thinking
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about a hybrid approach
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that you could still use Emacs
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as a core of your life,
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and then extend it
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with adjacent web applications
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where Emacs can be used
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as a text processing backend
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and use Org mode files
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as a universal format
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for converting textual data,
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and then If emacs can be
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connected with those applications
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that I mentioned
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a couple of slides before
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through their API, and you can have
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a two-way communication between them,
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and just export in JSON, let's say,
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and then convert to Org mode,
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and then use the Org mode
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for these local web apps.
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Then you can use Emacs for editing,
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and Org mode, but then you can use
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this adjacent web application
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for viewing information,
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making small edits, and in general,
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possibly have an enhanced
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user-defined UI that is
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directly connected to Emacs.
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Emacs Application Framework
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is a project that tries to achieve
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a common goal, but it tries to
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achieve that through
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displaying everything
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in the Emacs buffer,
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whereas I'm thinking
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if it can be displayed
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in any web browser, but utilize
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Emacs Application Framework API
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as a bridge between Elisp
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and Python and Javascript,
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so you can use
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the modern front-end frameworks
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to create those web interfaces easier
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and connect them
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with Emacs functionality.
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These user-controlled web apps
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would basically result in
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the user connecting
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to this external cloud-based tool,
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let's say Asana, but then
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process everything through Org mode
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and then display in an Org mode file
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or display in this enhanced way
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through the adjacent local web app,
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a front-end for which
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could be written in any .js framework
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for front-end development.
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I encourage everyone in the community
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who is interested in similar questions
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to share their opinion
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about the potential risks and drawbacks,
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about any other ways
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to achieve a similar goal,
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if anyone else is doing this already
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that i might not know about,
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and in general, just share ideas
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about what else can be done
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to integrate Emacs with more stuff
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and how Emacs can become
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more approachable by non-technical users
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because I would love to see
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more people using Emacs, to be honest.
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Yeah. Thank you very much
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for listening to this talk.
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I will be taking questions
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and feedback in the pad
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after the conference.
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You can reach me through this email
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laszlo@laszlo.is .
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I'll be posting
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some more detailed articles
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and description of this idea
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that I was trying to present today.
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[captions by Laszlo]
