Re: This is a simple question

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

In fact, you can use Ada/Emacs without ever touching the control key.
Say you are on Windows or OS/2, you may use drag and drop.
Of course you would have to know what folder icons on your
desktop are for and that you can drag things into applications,
which is not wide spread knowledge/usage AFAICT. There is a
quite comprehensive Ada menu for your mouse.

Marin David Condic <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:
: Explain to me why you can't build an
: editor that has a "Compile"/Build"/"Link"/"Run" set of buttons and *also*
: interprets ctrl-shift-alt-caps-lock-tab key sequences and a tricky command
: line?

With upcoming increased support of graphics facilities in GNU-Emacs (like
those present in X-Emacs), you should not only have graphical menus, but
also one-click "Run" buttons.

: And I still don't see how you say to EMACS: "See that directory over there
: full of Ada files? That's my project. Go open up my *project* and display
: all the files on the left for me. Make sure I can click on the file of
: interest and have it expand to show me all of the
: functions/procedures/types/objects/whatever that are in it.

That's the whole point of speedbar+ada-mode project files!
That it doesn not have Smalltalk capabilities yet is another
matter, but one can see this combination improving.
Then there is outline-minor-mode, too much forgotten I think!

: the end result would likely be an attrocity that
: would be very off-putting to many PC developers used to seeing looking a
: certain way.

I am still angry having to get used to these down-cut UI habits
transported to us from the MS "workability labs", myself coming from OS/2,
Oberon, and Plan 9. "It just works the simple ways we have recently
grown used to" will bring us back from houses to huts, as an
analogy :-) (I find hurs O.K. in times, but...
(Of course that goes for uninspired KDE tendencies as well.)

(There was actual software for a document centered approach.
Imagine that. Ada source code not restricted to plain monospaced
documentation comments...(That has been tried (e.g. noweb), but
you need a multi-syntax Editor... or some advanced document
construction facility that allows integration of differently
encoded programming project data (text, drawings, math, ...)
Does such a beast exist?)

: (Notepad
: gets used by a *lot* of people even though it doesn't do much. What it
: *does* do is obvious to any PC user - something EMACS lacks but might
: possibly be able to have, had that been a design goal.)

The only confusing thing in Emacs, if you look at it _without_ prior
sympathy or disgrace or even knowledge, is, I think, that  the File menu
is not where it is on your average Win box. (On OS/2 I do get
a system file open window, if I want one.)

There is _sooo_ much consulting money you can make just on the grounds
of users knowing things only by buttons. Sadly, this is observation,
not a joke ... (I can provide details, if you wish)

Georg