From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals Date: Sat, 09 May 2015 12:06:17 +0300 Message-ID: <836182p1bq.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87fv77barj.fsf@gnu.org> <87zj5fgpd8.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83h9rnp0yy.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1431162390 948 80.91.229.3 (9 May 2015 09:06:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 09:06:30 +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 May 09 11:06:21 2015 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 1Yr0iC-0007RH-Af for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 11:06:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58710 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Yr0iB-0006lF-Ee for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 05:06:19 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46955) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Yr0i1-0006lA-Um for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 05:06:10 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Yr0hw-0005JE-Qh for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 05:06:09 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout23.012.net.il ([80.179.55.175]:45379) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Yr0hw-0005Fe-If for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 05:06:04 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout23.012.net.il by a-mtaout23.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NO200I00RIIN000@a-mtaout23.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 12:06:02 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout23.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NO200ISPRY1GUA0@a-mtaout23.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 12:06:02 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.175 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:104317 Archived-At: > From: Stefan Monnier > Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 18:06:22 -0400 > > > What's a tutorial about an editor supposed to start with, if not basic > > cursor motion? > > I think most users will already have used some kind of text editor > (e.g. text box in a browser, notepad, textedit, you name it, ...), so > they probably "know" how to navigate the text and aren't interested in > that, as a start. We could tell them to skip these sections if they want to (and don't know how to skip without being told). But anyhow, that's how an editor's tutorial usually starts. E.g., look at the one for Vim. > I think it's good and important to talk about the different ways to > navigate (e.g. I'm particularly fond of sexp-navigation), but when > I present Emacs to my students, I never bother with the cursor-motion > part. Note that while describing cursor motion, we also introduce the important topic of a numeric argument to a command. > E.g. I talk instead about windows and buffers (e.g. the fact that > you can display a buffer in more that one window at the same time), > especially about C-x 1 to get rid of the pesky windows which may popup > along the way. Which is the topic of the very next part of the tutorial, after skimming over a couple of small but important issues. > I also talk about indentation (since either they can't imagine that the > editor might do it for them, or on the contrary they're disappointed > that it doesn't happen 100% automatically, or because they're confusing > the TAB key, the insertion of TAB characters, and the notion of > indenting text to a "tabulation point", which they seem to sometimes > take from WYSIWYG word processors). That's hardly in the first several topics, not before buffers, files, undo, insertion and deletion, search, etc. If it's important enough to be in the tutorial, we could add that, though.