Link to original article added (albeit not silently). Fair point, though the oversight came more from negligence than malice (I figured only the HN crowd that had seen the original article would be interested).
Anyways, the whole 'speaking out of turn' thing kind of rubs me the wrong way.
I'm only using the Google Docs as an example, but it's written like you're trying to convince your mom.
RMS wrote fucking emacs, dude. Do you know what emacs is? I've never used it and I probably know more about it than I do vi, which I do use every day, and have for the past 15 years! I'm not arguing from authority with that, btw, just an illustration about how much I don't use emacs. That said, let's not even countenance gcc and gdb.
There are myriad issues I could take issue with RMS over, but his need for advice on word processors is not one of them. He already has one. Everybody knows this. He wrote it. 35 years ago. A zillion other people use it too.
"Talking out of turn" was the wrong way to articulate that, so sorry about that. Ask anybody who knows me and they'll tell you I'm not much for hierarchies and authority (I'm certainly not afraid of being negged on HN), and I don't put RMS on a pedestal, but he has several important, long-standing, and long-recognized accomplishments in the history of personal computing, and computing in general (cf. his AI algo he wrote before emacs, still in use). This is undeniable. Google Docs! Sorry dude, I just can't get over it!
Thing is, I bet all of this was already spelled out in the HN thread for the original letter post, which I didn't read. Did you?
I didn’t read that as advice on a word processor at all. He should try it out (not actually use it) to see what all the fuss is about. To see why people don’t want to give it up. Emacs is not even comparable with Google Docs. They are different things.
Indeed. rhizome's quote is taken out of context. The google docs example isn't about word processing, it's about collaborative editing. When your options are using a tool like google docs or emailing around a file, only staunch idealism would make a person side with email. That was Alexy's point. Mainstream pragmatists aren't going to dump a technically superior tool because a seemingly crazy idealist told them it is the Right Thing to Do.
Anyways, the whole 'speaking out of turn' thing kind of rubs me the wrong way.