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# Emacs as Design Pattern Learning
Greta Goetz
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Still working on it! In the meantime, you can watch it at <https://toobnix.org/w/afvaVspSSR9YypjUqTypQz>
How do we manage today? This presentation is for people interested in thinking about Emacs as a tool sophisticated enough to cater to the complex assemblage of tasks, people, activities/outcomes, tools (Markauskaite & Goodyear). Some software oversimplifies. Emacs both helps users implement design pattern learning that can cope with complexity while also modeling design pattern learning. By championing the opportunity for users to also be co-creators (cf. Beaty et al.), the free software design at the core and center of Emacs teaches us a way of "being" (Alexander, Gabriel) that can be extended to both the Emacs community and beyond, in a knowledge of how to live (Stiegler, Illich).
1. Definition of design patterns and relation to Emacs
2. Why this approach matters
3. Managing complexity: Emacs as mind map
4. Emacs as design pattern framework
5. Personal customization
6. Implementing Emacs as a model for learning
7. Emacs as accommodating complex social, community assemblages
# References
- Andler, D. & Guerry, B. (Eds.). *Apprendre demain: Sciences cognitives et éducation à l’ère numérique*, 137-154. Paris: Hatier.
- Alexander, C. (1977). *A pattern language*. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Alexander, C. (1979). *The timeless way of building*. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Alexander, C. (1993). *A foreshadowing of 21st century art: The color and geometry of very early Turkish carpets*. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Beaty, L., Cousin, G., & Hodgson, V. (2010). Revisiting the e-quality in networked learning manifesto. In L. Dirckinck-Holmfeld, V. Hodgson, C. Jones, M. de Laat, D. McConnell, & T. Ryberg (Eds.), *Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning* (pp. 585–592). Aalborg: Lancaster University. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/organisations/netlc/past/nlc2010/abstracts/PDFs/Beaty.pdf. Accessed 30 October 2021.
- Chua, S. (2021). Completing sketches. https://sachachua.com/dotemacs/#org092e0d5. Accessed 29 October 2021.
- Crichton, M. (1983). *Electronic life*. New York: Knopf.
- Gabriel, R. (1996). *Patterns of software*. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Goodyear, P. & Retalis, S. (2010). Learning, technology and design. In Goodyear, P. & Retalis, S. (Eds.). *Technology-enhanced learning: Design patterns and pattern languages*, 1-27. Rotterdam, Boston: Sense Publishers.
- Guo, P. (2018). Students, systems, and interactions: Synthesizing the first
four years of Learning@Scale and charting the future. L@S 2018, June 26–28, 2018, London, United Kingdom. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3231644.3231662. <https://pg.ucsd.edu/pubs.htm>. Accessed 25 October 2021.
- Guo, P., Kim, J. & Rubin, R. (2014). How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC videos. ACM Conference on Learning at Scale. <https://pg.ucsd.edu/pubs.htm>. Accessed 25 October 2021.
- Illich, I. (1973). *Tools of conviviality*. New York: Harper & Row.
- Kim, J., Guo, P., Seaton, D., Mitros, P., Gajos, K. & Miller, R. (2014). Understanding in-video dropouts and interaction peaks in online lecture videos. ACM Conference on Learning at Scale. <https://pg.ucsd.edu/pubs.htm>. Accessed 25 October 2021.
- Markauskaite, L. & Goodyear, P. (2017). *Epistemic fluency and professional education: innovation, knowledgeable action and actionable knowledge*. Dordrecht: Springer.
- Markel, J. & Guo, P. (2020). Designing the future of experiential learning environments for a post-COVID world: A preliminary case study. NFW ’20 (Symposium on the New Future of Work), August 3–5, 2020, Virtual Event. <https://pg.ucsd.edu/pubs.htm>. Accessed 25 October 2021.
- Morin, E. ([2004] 2008). *La Méthode - tome 6: Éthique*. Éditions du Seuil: Paris.
- Planet Emacs Life. <https://planet.emacslife.com/>. Accessed 25 October 2021
- Stallman, R. (2002). My Lisp experiences and the development of GNU Emacs. https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html. Accessed 29 October 2021.
- Stiegler, B. (2018). *The neganthropocene*. Open Humanities Press.
- Trocmé-Fabre, H. (1999). *Réinventer le métier d’apprendre*. Paris: Éditions d’organisation.
# Discussion
Pad:
- Q1: Any reference to a Christopher Alexander book that you liked
most?
- (peer answer A:
- Alexander, C. (1977). A pattern language: towns, buildings,
construction. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Alexander, C. (1979). The timeless way of building. New
York: Oxford University Press. (thanks!!)
- also check out: Gabriel, R. (1996). Patterns of software:
tales from the software community. New York: Oxford
University Press.
(<https://dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf)>
- Alexander, C. (1993). *A foreshadowing of 21st century art:
The color and geometry of very early Turkish carpets*. New
York: Oxford University Press.
- A:
- Q2: You are making a great case for the ease-of-use, humanizing, and
empowering aspects of Emacs, but how does this align with the
initial difficulty for many users in learning Emacs? What is the
weakness of Emacs here, in relation to these design patterns?
- A: If we take a Vygotskyean approach to learning, we begin step
by step, gradually building on to what we know. What I found
fascinating as a non-programmer coming to Emacs was how this
approach works even in Emacs. Particularly if we are taking a
human-based approach to Emacs, it has no weakness here, because
humans can only move forwards from where they are, not where
they want to be. So Emacs becomes a good teacher in
process-based learning. We need to hierarchize what we know,
what we are ready/motivated to learn next, and also remember the
time required for growth.
- Q3: How do you suggest emacs users should go about desinging their
work(flow) patterns?
- A: Strangely, I seem to have answered this above!
- Q4: Emacs provides a lot of extensibility as mentioned in your talk.
This is a good thing, but such extensibility and possiblility can
sometimes inhibit creativity (for me at least). How could we
incorporate constraints in to how we use Emacs, in order to deal
with the possibilities that might make it\'s use more complex? A
great answer, thank you!
- A: I love this question. What about thinking about Emacs as
one\'s own path of desire? What do we want to do most with it?
But also, because Emacs is the ultimate blank canvas, in this
context I would recommend reading Cameron\'s \"Blasting through
blocks\" chapter in The Artist\'s Way to get through any related
anxiety and find one\'s \'creative purpose\' with Emacs. And
building on an answer from above, taking things one
project/activity/outcome at a time. Trusting that over time
skills and proficiency grow.
- I like the idea about \"Emacs as one\'s own path of
desire\". It\'s all in my init.el.
- Emacs is seriously the best in this respect! :) And it is
so great to be part of this conference to be among like
minds!:)
- Q5:In your opinion, what approaches might be tried to introduce
individuals to these aspects of emacs\'s user experience? In my
experience, many of my co-workers are often impressed with what I am
able to do with emacs, but they remain reticent to attempt it
because I find it difficult to produce a suitably encapsulating
\"elevator pitch\" for it.
- A: Not everyone wants to think about the tools that they use.
Haha, that is why I am trying to get one convert at a time, and
let them convert others in their midst :)
- Q6: Are there ways to reach out to you after the conference to dig
deeper here?
- A: gretzuni.com
- Q7:On the mention of emacs being \'frontierless\': Doesn\'t this
result in a kind of \'characterless\' or \'non-definied\' space? For
example, if I learn a musical instrument, I am bound by various
frontiers/horizons (12 tone system, the tamber of the particular
instrument, etc). Surely there are similar limits on the
extensibility of emacs and the possibilities it offers for \'human
expansion\'. If so, which limits/boundaries of emacs do you see as
most meaningful/impactful on growth and transformation?
- A: That is a really interesting question. Aren\'t the limits
here our knowledge? I am really stuck on the idea of Lisp and
its dialects as being particularly philosophical. Any time I
look at what people do with Lisp it seems to be profoundly
related to design on a deeper level. I will leave it here for
now - but thank you for the question, I will be sure to mull it
over and possibly blog about it at some point\...
- Hi! Thank you for the answer, that was exactly what I was
thinking about (elisp being something particular/defining to the
emacs experienc/environment). I don\'t know lisp/programming
myself, so I was just interested in your perpsective! Really
loved the talk a lot! But the way, the question came from a
hermeneutic perspective, where boundaries/horizons are essential
for defining/demarcating the self (of course, within a boundary
there can be endless play, but the limits set the \'rules\' for
play, and therefore create meaning).Thanks again!
- Wow - a fellow hermeneuticist?!
- Haha, yes. In my past life I studied it ;) also studied a lot of
Stiegler too, so was interested to find him in the talk!
- That is quite uncanny! The combination of the three (plus Emacs)
have given me a whole new perspective on life - and I wonder why
Stiegler didn\'t pursue Free Software more, though he does nod
to it here and there. Do you have any work to share, would you
like to keep in touch?
- sure! would be great! :) My main area was Ricoeur, so I have
written some things on Ricoeur and technology (there was a
recent volume on his work, and I wrote something on
postphenomenology and ricoeur) I\'ve since left academia though,
because it was quite difficult to find full-time work
(especially since hermeneutics is so
underappreciated/underreppresented! so, I always get excited to
hear others talking about it ;)
- Yes, I know what you are talking about and actually the whole
future - and present - of academe is an interesting question -
haha that I think is related to Emacs, I mean, we do live in the
knowledge age so we need tools to help with this. Ricoeur has a
great essay on ideology and science critique, which is so limber
(as opposed to so much calcified academic thinking) and I am so
interested in exploring approaches to academe that \'continue
the ongoing work of the hermeneuticist\' (I am paraphrasing him
here) that make use of technology, possibly through something
like Ted Nelson had in mind, where we literally trace the traces
among ideas\... wow, that\'s a mouthful of a comment. Ha! I am
overjoyed at the opportunity for this conversation, thank you so
much! :)
- really interesting that you are referencing Ted Nelson in
this context. I think org-roam, in many ways, resembles what
he had in mind with Xandadu; well, with the limitation that
org-roam only serves Personal Information Management, not
our civilisations\' as he intended with Xanadu.
- Yes! the feeling is mutual :) I really love Ricoeur\'s general
style and approach to questions. Unfortunately he didn\'t write
much about technology itself, which made my job quite difficult!
But I did meet a friend of his once that told me that, in the
70s, Ricouer had asked him \"are we still writing when we use
computers?\". So, he was thinking about the question at least. I
only discovered emacs after I finished all that word, but since
then I can finally say that \'yes!\' we can \'write\' using
computers (with writing being a core activity of the self for
Ricoeur). Also, I just wish I had emacs instead of just writing
so many academic papers in microsoft word!
- Ha! Yes, the moment of being freed from that software box and
having all the LaTeX options in Emacs (here, I list my fave) is
like stepping into technicolor out of black and white - to this
day, I still feel that way! So much you wrote is interesting.
Stiegler\'s concern of whether technology - like the writing pad
in Plato earlier - would strip us of our intellectual capacity
(I can see that possibly happening with automaticizing tools
like - maybe Excel is a good example, because one does not
really have to think about what one is doing). But Emacs use
prompts us to ask questions and design \*exactly\* what we are
looking for.
- wow, yes, that is so interesting. I never considered the
question of desire and emacs until your talk, and it was
definitely one of the most interesting parts!
- In my work I was also mostly interested in Freud (the role of
\'technique\' in psychoanalysis) and also Foucault\'s later
lectures on hermeneutics of the self/technologies of the self.
The angle of \'desire\' in relation to personal
configuration/design was so interesting to me and like an
\'aha\' moment. I\'ll definitely be thinking about it more!
Thank you so much again for the talk and all the responses!
- Thank you too, and hope we\'ll be in touch!
- Yes :) enjoy the rest of the conference!
- Likewise :)
- Q8: What was that Crichton quote? That was neat! (From the
references - Crichton, M. (1983). *Electronic life*. New York:
Knopf.)
- A: Thank you - I hope that general computing will have its day!
- Q9: Greta, you seem to be an academic researcher. Any of your
publications or other good references on this topic that you can
share/link here?
- I hate linking to DOIs, but here are two:
- <https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1962706> A song of teaching
with free software in the Anthropocene
- DOI 10.1007/s42438-020-00188-3 The Odyssey of Pedagogies of
Technoscientific Literacies
**Links and other notes:**\
- Design Pattern: macro solution; human-centered
- Emacs is a design pattern for learning.
- Why we care about design patterns?
- Emacs as a mental map.
- Everyone\'s Emacs is their own.
- The development of the Emacs communitiy is similar to the \[free\]
core of Emacs devlopment.
IRC:
- this paper is relevant to exploring the space of design patterns: https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/1998/WS-98-08/WS98-08-024.pdf it's old and a little cryptic, but a good paper. it's "Recommender Systems for Problem Solving Environments"
- greta: Thanks for that link!
- if I may ask, what's the little toy figure in the background, looks nice :D
- A wooden (fake) Transformer :)
- do you think emacs could have implemented with this design pattern, but in another programming language?
Feedback:
- That's a great point about the sketches, and why Emacs graphical improvements are important.
- yes this talk is excellent. i'm very happy to find some of my thoughts echoed here in such a clear and well researched way
- this is exactly my experience. using/learning emacs is THE way that i gained the skills, the learning to learn skills i needed to become a professional programmer (which is incidental to the growing up into a hacker :P)
- a friend of mine (my original emacs mentor) has been telling me about Ivan Ilich and wondering about how his philosophy lines up with free software, so this is amazing synchronicity of thought for me.
- cognitive democracy is a very useful phrase to describe emacs (and FOSS) culture
- This is saying out loud in concrete language everything I've felt about emacs and the community since e.g. the package system became available and social git forges made it easy to explore others' configs
- What a wonderfully diverse set of viewpoints so far. Not just viewpoints but concepts I would never have expected in an ‘Emacs conf’. I'm glad I dropped by. Thank you greta.
- This quote of Richard Gabriel rings a bell in the emacs context: "If it is small, it was written by an extraordinary person, someone I would like as a friend; if it is large, it was not designed by one person, but over time in a slow, careful, incremental way" (Gabriel, R. (1996). Patterns of software: tales from the software community. New York: Oxford University Press. (https://dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf)
- I just finished listening to Greta Goetz's talk and I love it so much.
- I listened to it after listening to acdw's talk on the frownies mode, a little mode to do something very simple, how he met people, wrote that mode, published it, got feedback. Your talk felt like an excellent background on the experience. The part about helping each other also really resonated with me. I would like to search for how many messages I must have posted to comp.emacs and gnu.emacs.help back in the days. I feel like it must have been about 2000 of them. :) Much of that long before I started writing any code.
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