From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Hans BKK Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Learning "my emacs" from the start (was: Generating a listing of all symbols) Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 13:10:22 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3defe928-5d2e-4d3b-bc26-f595f275f840@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1397938526 27181 80.91.229.3 (19 Apr 2014 20:15:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 20:15:26 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Apr 19 22:15:20 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WbbfT-0004rJ-L5 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2014 22:15:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43405 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WbbfT-0003ap-6a for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2014 16:15:19 -0400 X-Received: by 10.58.22.70 with SMTP id b6mr14604454vef.13.1397938223566; Sat, 19 Apr 2014 13:10:23 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.182.27.234 with SMTP id w10mr521obg.31.1397938223168; Sat, 19 Apr 2014 13:10:23 -0700 (PDT) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!m5no3385279qaj.1!news-out.google.com!gi6ni545igc.0!nntp.google.com!l13no8687468iga.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=2602:306:334f:a5e0:34d6:6f1d:10e2:9ffb; posting-account=IUdGewoAAACF9WtA3i8stuVyXNk2FqaH Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 2602:306:334f:a5e0:34d6:6f1d:10e2:9ffb User-Agent: G2/1.0 Injection-Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 20:10:23 +0000 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:204976 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:97241 Archived-At: Since some of my ideas here may run counter to the canonical "emacs way" do= gma, thought I'd post this separately rather than side-tracking the origina= l thread: http://groups.google.com/d/msg/gnu.emacs.help/1wWyCzr6TDo/4Anbnr_= PsFgJ On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Robert Thorpe wrote: >> Before I start getting to know emacs as an end-users - which I'm >> highly motivated to do, despite the amazingly steep learning curve to >> do the most basic things - I plan to of course highly customize my >> emacs environment to suit my needs, before starting the muscle-memory >> training required to become efficient. > > There's no one right way to learn Emacs. But, I think the way you're > choosing is a lot of work. > > You can start off using it for everyday editing, that's what I did and > what lots of people do. I expect you've done the tutorial and learned > the keybindings, that's very useful. Then read a bit of the manual > and the internet resources occasionally and learn more. > > You only really need to looks for customizations, enable non-default > packages, etc. when you run into a problem or you feel something is > inefficient. Why change the standard behaviour if it's not a problem? I am learning customization before ordinary usage in editing very intention= ally; emacs' value as a portable lifetime meta-OS dev/org/comms platform is= far more important to me than its comparatively trivial role as an editor. The whole point to me of bothering with the learning curve [1] of a complex= platform like emacs is to create my own highly-customized version, and the= keybindings seems (again, to me) to be a logical place to start, ideally b= efore getting sucked into the vanilla-emacs shift-Alt-Ctrl-Super-Meta-Cmd (= IMO sorry-but-insane ancient-legacy) default keybindings for routine naviga= tion and editing usage. I will of course leave many hundreds of commands alone, especially for the = more obscure and complex, less frequently used modes and packages not worth= taking the time to customize. Ideally my emacs will be keystroke-compatible with the de-facto standard bi= ndings for the most-used editing-basic functions, as followed by most other= mainstream editors released in recent decades, so my 5-y.o. kid and grandm= other could juat sit down and use it. If that's not practical then I'll choose/adapt one of the vi modes, I've go= t some previous muscle-memory invested there already and like the freedom t= o use simpler home-row keys offered by vim's modal aspect. The whole purpose of this initial delta-parsing-via-diff project is to sett= le on one of these starter-kit keybinding packages and then to bring over t= he best-of-breed features from the also-rans as needed/desired. THEN to start learning to use "my emacs" as much as possible in my daily wo= rkflow, optimizing my muscle-memory training. [1] http://jaleelchen.com/archives/469