The problem is that today, getting started often means: correct syntax highlighting, indentation, auto-complete (intelisense), build integration and scm integration. And for a few languages at least(e.g javascript, python, ruby, html, css, xml, shell scripts).
This is the problem. Going through the emacs tutorial is not enough. It's not that people have trouble getting started, they just don't want to experience the sudden drop in productivity once those things go away (at least for a while until you learn how to do them).
I've switched to emacs lately, and it was worth it. But it's hard to justify, to a newcomer, why the default javascript mode sucks with common idioms (no indentation, tags - and let's not even get started on intelisense).
When emacs and vi were kings, very few environments where that capable. So all you had to learn was basic editing. Everything else was a surplus. In the last few years, with the rise of eclipse, visual studio, netbeans and others, it's a harder battle.
In my dream world the emacs community would do a gentle fork, that would have ide like capabilities for common setups (python, js, ruby, c, perl, html, java, etc) + editing as expected (like hungry-delete) + more common key bindings (like the command key as meta on mac). Bonus point for a s/frame/window/ , s/buffer/file/ and so on on the documentation.
This way, newbies would be almost at home from the start (some commands to learn, plus the odd keybindings). But with time, they would customize more, and learn to drop the training wheels if necessary. The problem is learning everything at once (terminology, key bindings, elisp, editing) is too much burden for most folks.
In my dream world the emacs community would do a gentle fork, that would have ide like capabilities for common setups (python, js, ruby, c, perl, html, java, etc) + editing as expected (like hungry-delete) + more common key bindings (like the command key as meta on mac). Bonus point for a s/frame/window/ , s/buffer/file/ and so on on the documentation.
This, by the way, is why I tend to use Textmate for the (very) minor programming-related stuff I do on OS X: the bundles make it exceedingly easy to do stuff fast.
This is the problem. Going through the emacs tutorial is not enough. It's not that people have trouble getting started, they just don't want to experience the sudden drop in productivity once those things go away (at least for a while until you learn how to do them).
I've switched to emacs lately, and it was worth it. But it's hard to justify, to a newcomer, why the default javascript mode sucks with common idioms (no indentation, tags - and let's not even get started on intelisense).
When emacs and vi were kings, very few environments where that capable. So all you had to learn was basic editing. Everything else was a surplus. In the last few years, with the rise of eclipse, visual studio, netbeans and others, it's a harder battle.
In my dream world the emacs community would do a gentle fork, that would have ide like capabilities for common setups (python, js, ruby, c, perl, html, java, etc) + editing as expected (like hungry-delete) + more common key bindings (like the command key as meta on mac). Bonus point for a s/frame/window/ , s/buffer/file/ and so on on the documentation.
This way, newbies would be almost at home from the start (some commands to learn, plus the odd keybindings). But with time, they would customize more, and learn to drop the training wheels if necessary. The problem is learning everything at once (terminology, key bindings, elisp, editing) is too much burden for most folks.