From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Mini Manual (PART 3) - CUSTOMIZING AND EXTENDING EMACS Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 00:16:17 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <87bnswyi4u.fsf@debian.uxu> References: <5eaf0440-3124-4d89-bd20-ddada9a3db12@googlegroups.com> <87r425qi4t.fsf@debian.uxu> <619ae998-2ce5-428d-bec7-a654427b81d0@googlegroups.com> <87k37nzy2q.fsf@debian.uxu> <87ion71r98.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1405030833 27802 80.91.229.3 (10 Jul 2014 22:20:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:20:33 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 11 00:20:27 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 1X5MhT-0001g0-6P for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Jul 2014 00:20:23 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40539 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1X5MhS-0006kF-MD for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Jul 2014 18:20:22 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed3a.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!news.stack.nl!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 90 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: SIvZRMPqRkkTHAHL6NkRuw.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:c699MNch0J51oEaM42aEsh7l0i4= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:206362 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:98630 Archived-At: Bob Proulx writes: > The problem can be summarized as the manual used a > non-free license with the hope that it would > encourage a print shop to print and sell physical > copies of the manual. Too bad that didn't work. I have been to tons of public libraries and they basically mimic the bookstores, only their books are older and with "annotations". Some of the books are still good, but most are those "Learn Brain Surgery in 24 Days, the Fun and Easy Way" - if you don't get provoked by such obvious nonsense, those books can be helpful - still, if you have done something for but one or two years, those are typically hopelessly "broad" for your purposes. To find the Emacs manual at such a bookshelf would be a very pleasant surprise! > But the result is one of unintended consequences. > Instead of encouraging documentation proliferation it > has the opposite of restricting the flow of it. > > Please see this for the details of the reasons. > > http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 Thanks, but that was so technical. I don't understand the issue. But I suppose if you want to have a movement and you put up rules - and some other part of the movement that basically share your views, if they do the same - what will eventually happen if those rules are many (and specific), some of the will clash and probably that's what happened here. > I do read most of the documentation on the screen. > However I don't find it as good as a printed book. > Therefore I have a *lot* of printed books! Yes, documentation on-screen is great in the man page sense, the online Emacs help sense, when you want to know some part of the interface. If you do Elisp for some time, and then switch to C, you feel like an idiot having to Google stuff because the interface isn't available (though some of the C is in the manpages). But there is actually nothing that stops anyone from writing C (interface) documentation that would work more or less like the Elisp one. On the other hand, to you read (page up, page down) on-screen I don't like. The computer should boost activity, not consumption of material like those pads that have enslaved the, eh, "kids" those days. That's why I also like books to be at a different "pace" than on-screen material. I appreciate when they tell the back story, some jokes, whatever, not just what you need to know to solve an immediate problem. If the pace of the book is right, you get into a pleasant state yourselves. Books are great. I wish I had a job where I could turn in lists of books to my boss, and he'd buy them for me... >> Alright, I'll do it. I know you contributed to it so >> I'll just blame you for everything I don't like. But >> actually I think I'll like all or most of it. > > I am still chuckling over this comment of yours. > Nicely done. :-) Ha ha, stupid jokes aside, if there are any newcomers to the Emacs or FOSS world lurking (I hope so!) who haven't figured it out, let me say writing documentation is time-consuming, difficult, it is an unsung business, and it can be frustrating as there are morons around talking trash about the software yet refusing to read the documentation, that would instantly solve whatever mess they're in. So the people who do documentation deserves cred and nothing else. As for the quality, there can be no better source for information than the official manual of a long-lived FOSS project. The reason is, the same material has been worked up by so many people, age in, age out - you know how commercial books boast "3rd edition" and so on? But to our manuals, there as been three million revisions - it is just a massacre by comparison. -- underground experts united