Re: Emacs Newbie Info Pages

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>
>> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2024 19:17:51 +0000
>> 
>> I guess we are thinking of different kinds of newbies here.  That being
>> said, an experiment I have been thinking about but haven't implemented
>> yet is a .ini-parser for Emacs that could load a Emacs configuration
>> from a file like 
>> 
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> [package avy]
>> set all-windows all-frames
>> bind C-z avy-goto-word-1
>> 
>> [package auctex]
>> set TeX-master dwim
>> hook TeX-language-de-hook site/use-german
>> rebind RET newline 
>> 
>> [package bash-completion]
>> (bash-completion-setup)
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>> 
>> where the common patterns are simplified and made safe (e.g. the "set"
>> directive wouldn't evaluate) but still remains powerful, as you can
>> intersperse lisp code.  If I ever get around to finishing this -- or
>> anyone else decides to steal the idea ;) -- then adding this to the core
>> and loading ~/.emacs.d/init.conf if it exists might be a useful thing to
>> mention in a newbie manual.
>
> This sounds like a new DSL to specify Emacs features to turn on and
> off?  Is adding yet another extension language to Emacs is a good
> idea?  If anything, why not start from Editorconfig way whose support
> was recently added to Emacs -- that at least is a DSL known to others
> out there?

Yeah, a DSL with a castrated syntax that many users might be familiar
with.  It might be possible to reuse the EditorConfig parser, but not
much more beyond that.  As I said, I haven't finished my prototype yet,
so there isn't much of a point in discussing concrete questions yet, I
just wanted to bring it up as an idea.

-- 
	Philip Kaludercic on siskin