(emacs) Intro [was: Making Emacs popular again with a video]

[excalamus--- via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4392 bytes --]

May 13, 2020, 06:53 by stefankangas@gmail.com:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> The question is, is it worth spending a few paragraphs on those points:
>>
>> > You are reading about GNU Emacs, the GNU incarnation of the advanced,
>> > self-documenting, customizable, extensible editor Emacs.
>>
>> When I wrote the first Emacs in 1976, these were exciting new advances.
>> Most users had never imagined such features in an editor.
>>
>> Maybe today every programmer has seen such features elsewhere, and
>> responds to that statement with, "ho hum."  If so, maybe we should
>> delete those paragraphs.
>>
>
> I do think most of that introduction comes off as somewhat uninspired
> and mundane if you don't know that backstory, such as:
>
> you can rebind the basic cursor motion commands (up, down, left and
> right) to any keys on the keyboard that you find comfortable
>
> While some parts are more exciting:
>
> New commands are simply programs written in the Lisp language, which are
> run by Emacs’s own Lisp interpreter.  Existing commands can even be
> redefined in the middle of an editing session, without having to restart
> Emacs.
>
> I think a rewrite would be in order.  But it's hard to write such a text
> well.
>
> Best regards,
> Stefan Kangas
>
How's this for a start?

+ Welcome to GNU Emacs!
+
+ An Emacs, short for "Editor MACroS", is a kind of text editor built
+ from the idea that each key calls a tiny program (or macro). This idea
+ proves powerful in practice, enabling far more than simple insertion
+ and deletion of characters.  With it, you can operate on words or
+ lines, sentences or paragraphs, even whole pages.  You can navigate
+ within or between documents, automate tasks, and control subprocesses;
+ all with the press of a key!  GNU Emacs is the GNU project's
+ incarnation of the Emacs idea.
+
+ GNU Emacs is built for introspection and extensibility.
+
+ "Introspection" means GNU Emacs has self-knowledge.  Every aspect of
+ the system is documented and, because of the Emacs idea, that
+ information is easy to access.  The documentation may be general, like
+ this introduction.  It may be instructive, like the tutorials that
+ are included.  The documentation even reaches down to the source code
+ itself!  All of this is right at your fingertips.  See Help.
+
+ "Extensibility" means behavior can be altered and improved.  Users can
+ customize their environment, from keyboard shortcuts to color themes
+ and most everything in-between.  See Customization.  The extensibility
+ goes beyond simple customization: new commands can be created and
+ applied in real-time.  New commands can be bundled in packages and
+ shared with the diverse Emacs community. Most of the commands in Emacs
+ are written in Lisp, with a few exceptions in C.  See Emacs Lisp
+ Intro(eintr) if you want to learn Emacs Lisp programming.
+
+ GNU Emacs is used by authors and researchers, as well as programmers.
+ It has seen active development for more than 30 years; it is a
+ heritage as much as a community project.  We love GNU Emacs because we
+ feel that no other editing environment rewards sustained user
+ investment quite like it.  We hope that will be your experience, too.

A few thoughts:
- The introduction in Emacs 26.3 is 306 words.  This is also 306 words.  I propose any rewrite should also be ~306 words.
- Extensible is more specific than customizable; if you're extensible, you're necessarily customizable, right?
- As brought up in the "GNU Emacs Raison d'etre" thread, it appears "We love GNU Emacs because we feel that no other editing environment rewards sustained user investment quite like it."  I buried this in the last paragraph because it flowed.  It's an audacious claim; one I think GNU Emacs upholds and a standard I think the community may implicitly support.  If so, it might be helpful to make it explicit.  Maybe that sentiment should be front and center?
- Aside from memory, these were my sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000819071104/http://www.multicians.org:80/mepap.html#seciii
https://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~monnier/hopl-4-emacs-lisp.pdf
- Real-time editor is used differently here than it appears to have meant in 1976.  I have used it here as shorthand for "without having to restart Emacs".

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 5966 bytes --]