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diff --git a/2020/info/06-transcription.md b/2020/info/06-transcription.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..edd9f912 --- /dev/null +++ b/2020/info/06-transcription.md @@ -0,0 +1,183 @@ +# Transcription
+
+Following is a somewhat hasty self-transcription of my talk. Please
+don't hesitate to [mailto:corwin@bru.st](ask for clarification) or to
+add any clarifications you feel helpful back into the EmacsConf wiki.
+
+ There is a visual gimmick underlaying the initial remarks. We are
+ looking at the first (first-slide ("Welcome") showing how the org
+ markdown looks on other editors, including cygwin emacs, Notepad++,
+ Sublime, VS Code, and cygwin vim. As each is closed we see the next,
+ until we reveal GUI Emacs running org-mode in a full-both frame.
+
+My name is Corwin Brust and I will be talking about getting started
+with Emacs Today. I have been an Emacs user for a long time-
+
+First of all thanks and a huge welcome to the conference..(_15s_)
+
+On behalf of and back to the other organizers. It has been cool to
+have a peek backstage.
+
+So. I've used a lot of different editors in my time. That's about 25
+years as a professional software engineer. And most of that
+time I've been using Emacs. (~54s_)
+
+I'll talk a little bit in a minute (if I can ever find my slides)
+about how I got into Emacs, but if you've used Emacs and a lot of
+other editors for a long time, something that you notice right away is
+that you get good with it in a way that stays meaningful. You learn
+new things, those things stick with you. You learn how to- how to
+make it do new tricks and then keep doing those tricks. (~1m26s_)
+
+I want to mention this conference isn't about (whoops: "this talk")
+how to adjust your configuration specifically. I don't have a bunch
+of good code samples in here. There are a bunch of other great talks,
+especially Andrew's that I think may be aimed more at that "hey, I'm
+just getting started with Emacs what are some things to try to make it
+more comfortable for me starting?" [subject/audience? cezb]. (~2m07s_)
+
+This is about how to think about the problem space more. (_2m10s_)
+
+Hopefully a good way to warm up as we start thinking about some of the
+lightning talks later on. (I'm going to bring up my IRC buffer
+[offscreen] in case I run into time- I didn't get my stopwatch started
+for this one.) (_2m25s_)
+
+So, alright: let's dive in. (_2m30s_)
+
+We assume that we want to install packages, and maybe configure some
+features. This is particularly from the perspective of where we're
+working with a bunch of others on a team and we want to get something
+done. (_2m42s_)
+
+Some of us probably have mature Emacs workflows, others may be
+installing it for the first time. (_2m50s_)
+
+So the first questions is, you know- in that context: what's the value
+proposition? Why should I mess with my machine, my mature Emacs
+configuration, impose my way of thinking and ideas over the way
+somebody else is learning Emacs? (_3m09m_)
+
+It can be [laugh] I'm off my slides here a little bit.. (_3m13s_)
+
+It can be a little tricky to learn Emacs. One thing that helps us a
+lot is if people that we are working with can tell us, kinda,
+keystroke-for-keystroke at times what to do and explain what
+everything is doing. (_3m30s_)
+
+And using the same packages as others can really help us working
+together on a project. (_3m36s_)
+
+Speaking from my personal experience, it took me decades to get to the
+point where I was excited to program in Emacs Lisp. (_3m26s_)
+
+I've programed in a lot of programming languages, but Lisp wasn't on
+my list. I looked at my config, that I was copy-pasting around from
+generation after generation of .emacs file or re-crafting it by hand
+and from Internet searches, to get things that I needed when I would
+quickly go install Emacs to start some new job or contract, and
+quickly get though that work-flow that caused me to go install the
+program. (_4m15s_)
+
+You know, just simple little one-liners that got committed to memory
+over decades eventually just lead [me] to a sort of "hey, what's going
+on here". (_4m27s_)
+
+And I credit my good friend Jeff Goff who died earlier in 2020 for my
+lifelong love of Emacs. Perhaps Erik and I will talk a little more
+about that at another talk we have scheduled but Jeff was a huge
+influence on us in a number of ways and a huge contributer to the Raku
+programming language which is very cool. (_4m52s_)
+
+So, understanding how to make a good decision about splitting up
+configuration in a way to share it with people with really different
+uses of Emacs. That's actually a complicated topic, and I want to off
+and stare at it for a second: (_5m11s_)
+
+I think Emacs is about people, so that means it is about community.
+And community means we're going to invite disagreement. In fact that
+disagreement isn't necessarily a road-block to our project, in fact
+that some of the work our project can invite us to do is to get closer
+to each other by inviting those disagreements, by learning from people
+of different styles, and from how they argue, and thinking about why
+they have that perspective and what technical benefits that perhaps
+radical point of view might carry away. Some people are really
+aggressive arguers others are very passive and really couch their
+ideas in distancing terms, "well probably this is a good idea" or
+"please double check me". Those don't always indicate how certain a
+person is. Because we're different. We have different ways of
+communicating ideas such as certainty or excitement. (_6m23s_)
+
+When we thinking about a bunch of really diverse programmers
+approaching Emacs probably one of our first really big challenges is
+just to pick what we're going to go after. There are a number of
+existing kit installs and things like this. My argument is that you
+can get pretty far just trading files around. And maybe the more
+value conversation to have is making the hard decisions, e.g. "should
+we have vertical completion", should that be out of the box and those
+that want the traditional splayed-out over a sing line such as the
+mode line will have to add a line to their configuration. (_7m26s)
+
+The way to get there?
+
+How do we find out what works?
+
+We don't want to slow down the people who are super productive with
+Emacs, and ask them to completely break their workflows to make it
+easier for new folks, at the same time we do want to make sure those
+new people. (_7m42s_)
+
+At the same time, we do want to make sure those new people arre
+excited by Emacs and not turned off by having to learn the entire
+jungle of Emacs history in the form of it's unique technical stylings
+in terms of frames, buffers, and other unique Emacs viewpoints on
+interface concepts, especially. (_8m15s_)
+
+The encouragement here is to keep using the project team as a
+crucible. Rather than following the defaults of, um, finding the
+simplest customizations that generally work, what if we tried to look
+for fairly specific configuration that we'll expect basically all of
+our developers to be using, at least when the submit bug
+reports. (_8m48s_)
+
+In particular with this, I think that degree of experimentation can
+drive back into the Emacs development process. In the development
+mailing list.. [] In the context of Emacs development as a greater
+entity, we see this struggle. We have the sense that some things can
+"never" be change. I think one thing that can help us get there is
+evidence that says "hey, my 30-40 person team is using this set of
+bindings and here is what we learned about new Emacs users coming in
+and trying that". (10m)
+
+So let's just recap real quick: in theory Emacs works out of the
+box. That means we are free to throw it all away and start over.
+[trouble with slides, again]
+
+Our goal is to enable users- to unlock our computers, to do as much
+with them as possible. My work of encouragement is experiment with it.
+And think really specifically about how the development users may be
+different from each other, as you are configuring the development
+environment of emacs for developing on a project.
+
+That's my talk, etc, answer any questions.(_12m09s_)
+
+Do you use Emacs as a Community Building Tool? (_13m15s_)
+
+Do /i/ use Emacs a community building tool? Or *how* do I use Emacs as a
+community building tool. [amin: "it doesn't say"]
+
+Yes, absolutely. I think Emacs is an ambassador to the gnu
+tool-chain. in the fullness of time we will see an Emacs that will
+make others, Android and iOS, dream. That's why that mock us and say
+that Emacs is an operating system. It's because it could be, if cared
+for it to be. It's quite a threatening product in terms of the number
+of problem spaces it can address, how many types of users it can
+satisfy. (_13m01s_)
+
+And the things that we can do to make it robust in those environments.
+We're always thinking about the weak points but is Emacs a community
+building tool? Heck yeah. (_13m13s_)
+
+[we agree that I'll write my answers to the remaining questions, I say
+thanks more, and we're done. ps, I'll get to your question or
+comments I can find a response to within the next week, I expect]
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