I can be wrong, but my impression was the opposite - all the new tutorials I saw recommended one or another starter pack with all the bells and whistles out of the box.
> while browsing the web and writing documents
I'm not sure if a proportion of users who write documents in a specialised software (like Word) is significant enough. And web browsing is largely clicking, no hot keys are used in general, so no habits to be picked up.
Another thing to consider is that now more and more users are coming from mobile platforms, without any desktop exposure whatsoever. For them, any desktop conventions are equally alien.
Good point, I hadn’t considered the new generation of mobile-first users.
> I'm not sure if a proportion of users who write documents in a specialised software (like Word) is significant enough.
I thought that most computer users learn to use computers while in school, for which they use a word processor to write essays and reports for the teachers. From around 2004 to my graduation in 2009, my middle and high school’s teachers even required essays to be typed and printed, so that they wouldn’t have to struggle to read students’ handwriting.
I guess some students prefer writing essays on paper, but those students probably wouldn’t become potential Emacs users.
Am I missing a common backstory for programmers that doesn’t involve using computers to write reports for school?
To be honest, I'm not quite aware of the current school requirements here, in my days all reports were hand written. But I've seen quite a lot of young people (here in the UK, do not know about the other countries) who obviously got no defining exposure to any desktop software at all. It is almost funny to see people discovering the copy and paste idea for the first time.
And with all the tablets and smartphones, even the basic touch typing skill is now extremely rare among the young.
Emacs is a GUI text editor too, btw.
I can be wrong, but my impression was the opposite - all the new tutorials I saw recommended one or another starter pack with all the bells and whistles out of the box.
> while browsing the web and writing documents
I'm not sure if a proportion of users who write documents in a specialised software (like Word) is significant enough. And web browsing is largely clicking, no hot keys are used in general, so no habits to be picked up.
Another thing to consider is that now more and more users are coming from mobile platforms, without any desktop exposure whatsoever. For them, any desktop conventions are equally alien.