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From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: larsi@gnus.org, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Why does the tutorial talk about C-n/C-p etc?
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:07:26 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87io0u4bip.fsf@russet.org.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <837fhamxwq.fsf@gnu.org> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Thu, 10 Mar 2016 12:26:29 +0200")

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
>> Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 09:58:15 +0000
>> Cc: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> 
>> The point of a tutorial is not to teach people to become brilliantly
>> efficent power users. It's to get them going, and to see the advantages
>> as quickly as possible.
>
> What do you suggest we teach them about the arrows that they don't
> already know?

What I suggest is that we don't teach them the arrow keys are not the
way to move the cursor around. This is what the tutorial does at the
moment.


Currently, we have on L40 (ish):

The first thing that you need to know is how to move around from place
to place in the text.

L65: You can use the PageUp and PageDn keys

L76: You can use the arrow keys



Seriously? New users already know to how move around from place to
place. It's like being a driving instructor and starting off with how to
open the door, or how to sit in the chair.

Other gems include:

  M-<chr>  means hold the META or EDIT or ALT

META or EDIT? Seriously? Before ALT which is what everyone has.

  L235: If you are using a graphical display, such as X or MS-Windows,
  there should be a tall rectangular area called a scroll bar on one
  side of the Emacs window.

If you are using a graphical display? I mean, of course, you are using a
graphical display?

  L238: If Emacs stops responding

i.e. if it's broken

Then disabled commands

  L277: Emacs can have several "windows"

An application with windows? Really? 

Oh, but we don't mean windows, we mean something else. It's okay, that's
explained:

  L893: Note that Emacs uses the term "frames"--described in the next
  section--for what some other applications call "windows"
  

Yes, on L893.


The tutorial is not wrong, nor is it missing anything. It's just
didactically from a different time, and I am sure it's putting many
people off.

Phil





  parent reply	other threads:[~2016-03-10 15:07 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 76+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-03-09 15:38 Why does the tutorial talk about C-n/C-p etc? Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2016-03-09 15:50 ` jpff
2016-03-09 15:50 ` Oleh Krehel
2016-03-09 16:03   ` Kaushal Modi
2016-03-09 18:25     ` Yuri Khan
2016-03-10 20:28       ` Alexey Veretennikov
2016-03-09 16:48   ` Drew Adams
2016-03-09 18:26     ` Yuri Khan
2016-03-09 19:05       ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-09 19:07       ` Drew Adams
2016-03-09 19:21         ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-10  5:48   ` Tom
2016-03-09 16:12 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-09 16:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-09 17:11 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-09 20:22 ` John Wiegley
2016-03-09 21:32   ` Tim Cross
2016-03-09 21:42     ` John Wiegley
2016-03-10  0:30     ` Evgeny Panasyuk
2016-03-10  5:54       ` Tom
2016-03-10  7:12         ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 12:49         ` Evgeny Panasyuk
2016-03-10 21:22       ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10 21:39         ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-10 22:06           ` Evgeny Panasyuk
2016-03-12  1:53             ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10  6:46 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10  9:58   ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-10 10:26     ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 14:45       ` Stefan Monnier
2016-03-10 15:07       ` Phillip Lord [this message]
2016-03-10 15:42         ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 15:48           ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-10 16:16             ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 17:47               ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-11 11:21         ` Filipp Gunbin
2016-03-11 11:38           ` Yuri Khan
2016-03-11 14:40             ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-11 16:57               ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-11 17:34                 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-11 18:11                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-11 22:00                   ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12  6:51                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-12  7:17                       ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-12 23:30                         ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 23:26                       ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12  1:52         ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10 23:26     ` John Wiegley
2016-03-11  2:10       ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-11  8:01         ` Dani Moncayo
2016-03-13 10:54           ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2016-03-13 17:09             ` Stefan Monnier
2016-03-11 16:45       ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 19:25         ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-12 20:09           ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 11:36             ` Tom
2016-03-13 16:36               ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 17:08                 ` Stefan Monnier
2016-03-13 17:27                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 18:41                     ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-13 19:03                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 19:14                         ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-13 20:27                         ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-14 12:16                         ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-14 14:14                           ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-15 15:19                             ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-13 19:46                       ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-13 20:15                         ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-14 12:15               ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-14 12:15             ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-14 16:33               ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-12 21:34           ` John Wiegley
2016-03-12 23:33             ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12  1:50     ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-12 19:14       ` Chad Brown
2016-03-12 21:05         ` Evgeny Panasyuk

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