On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 08:50:09AM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Fri, 2020-06-26 at 10:33 -0400, Neil Horman wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 09:00:58AM -0400, Solomon Peachy wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 08:43:19AM -0400, Neil Horman wrote: > > > > Do we have real stasitics on this (somthing in the form of bz reports or > > > > comments on a list) indicating that users actually are frustrated with being > > > > confronted with vi unexpectedly? > > > > > > Why would one file a bugzilla ticket over this? vi, and the system > > > default, is working as intended. "That's just the way Linux is," say > > > the folks having to answer "how to quit vi" for the umpteenth time. > > > > > Ok, perhaps bugzilla is the wrong venue, but the point stands. Are people > > actually asking how to quit vi (or some simmilar questions) somewhere? If I > > google how to quit vi, I see a full 10 pages of the answer to the question > > documented in detail (which suggests lots of people had the question at some > > point in time), but what I don't see are stackoverflow (or other message board > > posts) asking the question currently. > > In order to ask "how do I quit vi?" you have to know you're in vi. > Which you don't (again, from personal experience). > > I believe the question I eventually asked on IRC (later, because this > was still in the days when you didn't connect to the internet until it > was after 6pm and the phone call was cheaper :>) was something like "I > did X and this weird screen popped up where I could kinda type stuff > but some keys didn't work and I think maybe it was for editing text but > I couldn't figure out how to do it properly or save anything or quit, > what the hell was that?" or something along those lines. > > If you can figure out how to search the internet for questions like > that...=) > Thats a funny example :) https://www.google.com/search?q=I+did+git+commit+and+this+wierd+screen+popped+up+and+I+could+kind+of+edit&oq=I+did+git+commit+and+this+wierd+screen+popped+up+and+I+could+kind+of+edit&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64l3.11632j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 The first result that pops up is a stack overflow thread explaining that the wierd screen is vi, and how to work in it (as well as how to change it if you would rather use something else) > But Jonathan did in fact post a link to a detailed Stack Overflow > Yeah, he did, I commented on it somewhere else in this thread. > > Clearly there was a time when this was a > > problem (and access to all the online resources we have today wasn't available), > > I'd agree it's likely to be less of a roadblock today as you're much > more likely to be online 24/7 and have another device (phone!) you can > ask the question from. But it's still an unnecessary pain point. (And > *some* poor person on the internet has to explain this problem for the > sixteen billionth collective time). Why not fix it? > Oh, I completely agree with fixing it. Somewhere else in this thread you mentioned that the 10000000 searches for exiting vim meant 10^6 people had to needlessly search for the answer to that. Thats probably an indicator that vi could be improved to make it more discoverable (lots of opportunity there), but I don't think its cause to change the default editor, because those 10^6 people asked the question, and (I have to assume) kept using vi, so for whatever questions they're asking, they don't (seem) to be rising to the level of departing Fedora for another distro that offers something else as the default. Also, have we asked the question, what default editor are other distros setting? I've honestly never looked. > > but now? I'm just asking us not to make this decision by proxy. Are there > > users out there today that are complaining somewhere that vi is hard to use, and > > can't either figure it out, or figure out how to use a different editor > > > > > > I'm struggling with the notion that an individual user is sufficiently > > > > skilled to use git on the command line, > > > > > > They actually aren't skilled on the cmdline. At most they'll just > > > cut-n-paste something they found on stack overflow. Instead, GUI git > > > frontends are the norm, generally embedded within IDEs. > > > > > This just confuses me further. For integrated IDEs, the selection of a default > > editor for terminal usage is largely irrelevant, as the IDE typically provides > > an editor built in (basing this assertion on eclipse behvior, but I'd be > > suprised if an ide forks a terminal just to run the git default editor) > > Don't focus on git. It's not just about git. git was just a convenient > example of something that launches the default text editor. > Sure, we can substitue any other tool here that has to fork an editor from the command line, and some of those will be far more in line with what a novice non-developer might use. I just think for those users, nano likely isn't going to move the needle much, and I'm not sure how many of those users Fedora gets, or looses on this point. I know we can't really get that data, but it sure would be great to have. > > So the user you are describing > > > > 1) Isn't skilled in command line usage > > 2) Chose to use the command line anyway, despite having a littany of IDE's > > available > > 3) Was sufficiently well versed in development process to chose to use an SCM, > > and to search for commands to work with it (setting asside their lack of > > understanding of what they were doing) > > 4) But wasn't sufficiently well versed enough to go back and find out how to use > > the editor that their scm choice chose to default to > > > > I just don't see that that person really exists. > > There are literally multiple people in the thread telling you this > literally happened to them or to people they know who asked them for > help. I am one of them. I think thats an overstatement. If it isnt, I apologize, but I really have a hard time believing that they comply with 1-3 (those are entirely believable), but then threw their hands up in the air when confronted with a window that they could sort of edit text in. As shown above, typing "I typed <x> in and this wierd screen poped up that I could kind of edit" into google answered that question in the top result. I grant you that vi could be more discoverable, but even though vi presents you with an interface that can be hard to understand, finding the answers to how to use it isn't hard (even if you don't know its vi). > -- > Adam Williamson > Fedora QA Community Monkey > IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net > http://www.happyassassin.net > _______________________________________________ > devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
