From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2020 21:43:09 +0300 Message-ID: <837dt0f936.fsf@gnu.org> References: <875z8ortot.fsf@gkayaalp.com> <83lfhjkq0r.fsf@gnu.org> <8620B5CD-CA92-46BF-80A8-DBE7052F4CA6@gmail.com> <32292E31-1603-4EF9-B772-EBD378C32F76@gmail.com> <83o8mcfjxb.fsf@gnu.org> <83een8fi2u.fsf@gnu.org> <83blicfh1l.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="8908"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: casouri@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Gregory Heytings Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 11 20:43:49 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kGo1U-0002DE-51 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:43:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50160 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kGo1T-0004Dn-7n for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 11 Sep 2020 14:43:47 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:60896) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kGo0u-0003oE-VH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 11 Sep 2020 14:43:12 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:45469) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kGo0u-0002WW-Hp; Fri, 11 Sep 2020 14:43:12 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=4539 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1kGo0u-0004KH-04; Fri, 11 Sep 2020 14:43:12 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Gregory Heytings on Fri, 11 Sep 2020 16:00:41 +0000) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:255227 Archived-At: > Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2020 16:00:41 +0000 > From: Gregory Heytings > cc: casouri@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org > > > How would they even understand the doc strings without knowing what's a > > buffer and what's a window? We have the Glossary section in the manual, > > for that very reason. > > Again my point of view is: what are the most essential things that a user > needs to know to use Emacs if we have no more than three minutes? The > point is to create a minimal configuration wizard / guided tour to > introduce them to the most essential things and help them to create a > minimal configuration with which they would feel "at home", instead of > having the "this is weird" feeling. That is a very different goal from that of our tutorial (or any good tutorial, IMO). A tutorial should present the important workings of the tool it describes, which includes all the basic operations and ideas. A user who has no more than 3 minutes can just start typing and use the menus for the rest. I believe Emacs supports all the features such a user can expect: cursor motion with arrows and PageUp/PageDown, text insertion and deletion, saving via the menus, etc. But if you think such "3-minute users" need a document to get them started, by all means, write such a document. It is not what the tutorial attempts to do, though. > You mention "doc strings", but why on earth would a user who just started > using Emacs read doc strings? To learn more about Emacs, of course.