Failing to see the allure of Emacs

Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Daniel]

Hello,

I started learning emacs 48 hours ago.  The motivation for this was to
be able to do programming and general computing tasks through just
emacs.  I've seen the wizards who are just doing all kinds of crazy
stuff--quickly.  I am not sure what the benefit is now, though, after
going through the tutorial.

Yes, I can edit text files and python files and java files no
problem.  And I have no doubt that I'll get faster. But I thought that
I would never have to leave the emacs terminal window.

So much of daily computing for anyone consists of pdfs, word, excel
documents, gmail, itunes, file browsing, etc.  So I still have to
switch to the gui to do these things.  If I've still got to leave the
emacs environment to do general computing tasks, what is the
productivity gain here?  There are plugins, I know, but I haven't
explored those.

I've always been someone who reads the shortcuts built into something
like BBEdit or TextWrangler, Notepad ++, or Eclipse, so I am not sure
how much more productive I'll be.

Also, I'm a bit confused with regards to using dired to navigate files
vs just the bash shell, which I'm more familiar with.

But again, did I expect too much out of emacs?  So far I find it to be
about as good as BBEdit . It's a text editor but no more.  I expected
emacs to be the one program that ruled them all.
Thanks

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

Daniel <unagimiyagi@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I started learning emacs 48 hours ago.  The motivation for this was to
> be able to do programming and general computing tasks through just
> emacs.  I've seen the wizards who are just doing all kinds of crazy
> stuff--quickly.  I am not sure what the benefit is now, though, after
> going through the tutorial.
>
> Yes, I can edit text files and python files and java files no
> problem.  And I have no doubt that I'll get faster. But I thought that
> I would never have to leave the emacs terminal window.
>
> So much of daily computing for anyone consists of pdfs, word, excel
> documents, gmail, itunes, file browsing, etc.  So I still have to
> switch to the gui to do these things.

Emacs views PDFs (and if you don't like how it does that, it is easy to
start a viewer from within Emacs, from the minibuffer, a shell window,
an Emacs shell or a number of modes from source files that ultimately
generate PDF).  It reads and sends mail and news.  It does file
browsing.  It integrates tightly with version control systems.  It keeps
the calendar and other stuff.

> But again, did I expect too much out of emacs?  So far I find it to be
> about as good as BBEdit . It's a text editor but no more.  I expected
> emacs to be the one program that ruled them all.

It is not that dissimilar.  Hobbits can resist pretty long.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Daniel <unagimiyagi@gmail.com> writes:

> So much of daily computing for anyone consists of:
- pdfs

M-! xpdf file.pdf & RET


- word

Just say no.  (Ask for a pdf!)

- excel

Just say no.  (Ask for a csv!)


- documents

What kind?


- gmail

M-x rmail
M-x vm
M-x mew
M-x gnus


- itunes

M-x emms

- file browsing

M-x dired

> So I still have to switch to the gui to do these things.  If I've
> still got to leave the emacs environment to do general computing
> tasks, what is the productivity gain here?  

Indeed.


> There are plugins, I know,
> but I haven't explored those.

Sure, in 48 hours, we don't expect you're Superman.  It takes ten years
to start to master emacs.


> I've always been someone who reads the shortcuts built into something
> like BBEdit or TextWrangler, Notepad ++, or Eclipse, so I am not sure
> how much more productive I'll be.


The most productivity gains you get in emacs is when you start
programming it, to automate _your_ tasks.


> Also, I'm a bit confused with regards to using dired to navigate files
> vs just the bash shell, which I'm more familiar with.

Well, it's the same difference as using the Finder vs. the shell, or
using whatever they use on MS-Windows vs. the shell.

I use the shell too, inside emacs.

M-x shell


> But again, did I expect too much out of emacs?  So far I find it to be
> about as good as BBEdit . It's a text editor but no more.  I expected
> emacs to be the one program that ruled them all.

Again, the "rule them all" comes from the transmogrifying feature of
emacs, that is, when you start to program your own emacs functions.  

But don't be in a hurry, it will take time to learn all the existing
features, and to learn programming in emacs lisp to be able to write
your own.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

Daniel, emacs is a superb text editor; for why that is, you can either take 
everyone's opinion or you can go to some 1970's and 1980's-era studies of 
the ergonomics and cognitive demands of text editing.  Simply put, emacs 
gets it.  Most other editors only halfway get it.

But to see what's so superb about emacs you must get to know its 
extraordinarily powerful macro facility and its programmability.  emacs 
incorporates an entire programming environment which can control everything 
it can do and every datatype it can handle -- subprocesses, windows, 
sockets, lists, numbers, arrays, strings (which are vectors), etc.  Once 
you can get your hands on that -- and I doubt you can do it in only 48 
hours -- you'll never want to go back.

Let's say you're proficient with bash.  Okay: with emacs you can run a bash 
subshell and write macros and programs that can operate on the bash shell 
environment in relationship to things you're doing in multiple other 
windows and multiple other buffers.  emacs can do this in your choice of 
character set.

I wouldn't call myself an emacs guru, but I've been using it for 30 years, 
and although I've tried out other editors, none of them compares to emacs 
in terms of power, flexibility, and programmability.  When I find one that 
can, I'll switch to it, but by now that seems unlikely.  In those areas 
emacs doesn't just occupy the high ground: it owns the whole damned mountain.

djc

PS I find that for my purposes emacs falls short in two areas: the ability 
to handle arbitrarily large files efficiently, and documentation.  How I'd 
love to see complete, up to date, readily usable documentation!  If that 
existed, this newsgroup would see less traffic.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jeff Clough]

Daniel <unagimiyagi@gmail.com> writes:

> I started learning emacs 48 hours ago.  The motivation for this was to
> be able to do programming and general computing tasks through just
> emacs.  I've seen the wizards who are just doing all kinds of crazy
> stuff--quickly.  I am not sure what the benefit is now, though, after
> going through the tutorial.

Falling in love with Emacs, so to speak, likely isn't something that
happens in 48 hours.  I'm not saying there's any particular onus on your
part to spend more time with it if you're not seeing a pay-off, but the
value makes itself clear the more you do with it and the longer you're
in it.

> Yes, I can edit text files and python files and java files no
> problem.  And I have no doubt that I'll get faster. But I thought that
> I would never have to leave the emacs terminal window.

There are still things I leave Emacs for, such as surfing the web.  My
usage patterns for using things like Facebook, YouTube and a few forums
make this much easier to do in a mouse and dedicated browser that Just
Works.  That said, 90% of my time is spent typing at an Emacs window.

> So much of daily computing for anyone consists of pdfs, word, excel
> documents, gmail, itunes, file browsing, etc.  So I still have to
> switch to the gui to do these things.  If I've still got to leave the
> emacs environment to do general computing tasks, what is the
> productivity gain here?  There are plugins, I know, but I haven't
> explored those.

Emacs does PDFs out of the box, has text layout (though not WYSIWYG)
tools, spreadsheet packages, can browse your directories, move, copy and
rename files and can read mail and news.  A week or so ago I got fed up
with Rhythmbox (think iTunes for Linux only it's crap) and wrote my own
in Emacs Lisp.  Now I listen to my mp3s in Emacs.

> I've always been someone who reads the shortcuts built into something
> like BBEdit or TextWrangler, Notepad ++, or Eclipse, so I am not sure
> how much more productive I'll be.

Probably very, since if you're someone who can easily learn such things,
not only can you take advantage of the bindings that already exist, but
you can bind arbitrary commands to whatever keys you like, switch around
existing bindings and likely never have to touch your mouse while in
Emacs.

> Also, I'm a bit confused with regards to using dired to navigate files
> vs just the bash shell, which I'm more familiar with.

Type M-x shell from within Emacs and you still can.  Only now the shell
is tied to a buffer and you can use all of your happy Emacs commands on
what you type and the output you get.

> But again, did I expect too much out of emacs?  So far I find it to be
> about as good as BBEdit . It's a text editor but no more.  I expected
> emacs to be the one program that ruled them all.

When anyone first starts using Emacs it has very little utility over
what you'd expect from Notepad or any other bare-bones text editor.
Once you start using it and learning the basic commands (moving around,
manipulating the kill ring, dancing with buffers, etc.) it graduates to
the level of something like BBEdit, or the editor in your favorite IDE.

But then you start looking at the different packages that come with it
and see that now you can browse your directories and still use things
like search-forward to jump right to a file in a long list.  Or that
org-mode lets you take notes and keep track of tasks in a way that
really helps.

And if you pick up a little Lisp along the way, you might find yourself
adding a new binding or creating an entirely new command while you're
working and not have to leave Emacs in order to use it.

It's not for everyone, takes a while to experience the big pay off and a
longer while for people to say "How did I ever live without it?"  You
just have to decide if it's worth spending that much time on.

Jeff

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Daniel]

Thanks for all the help!  Any other nuggets I'd really appreciate.
The entire impetus for looking into emacs is b/c the programmers that
I really am in awe of seem to really use it.  These days everywhere
you turn there's a new GUI or language to learn, and I want to make
sure that emacs will ultimately lessen the number of things that I
need to learn in the future.

On Mar 21, 5:00 pm, "akai...@visi.com" <akai...@visi.com> wrote:
> Daniel, emacs is a superb text editor; for why that is, you can either take
> everyone's opinion or you can go to some 1970's and 1980's-era studies of
> the ergonomics and cognitive demands of text editing.  Simply put, emacs
> gets it.  Most other editors only halfway get it.
>
> But to see what's so superb about emacs you must get to know its
> extraordinarily powerful macro facility and its programmability.  emacs
> incorporates an entire programming environment which can control everything
> it can do and every datatype it can handle -- subprocesses, windows,
> sockets, lists, numbers, arrays, strings (which are vectors), etc.  Once
> you can get your hands on that -- and I doubt you can do it in only 48
> hours -- you'll never want to go back.
>
> Let's say you're proficient with bash.  Okay: with emacs you can run a bash
> subshell and write macros and programs that can operate on the bash shell
> environment in relationship to things you're doing in multiple other
> windows and multiple other buffers.  emacs can do this in your choice of
> character set.
>
> I wouldn't call myself an emacs guru, but I've been using it for 30 years,
> and although I've tried out other editors, none of them compares to emacs
> in terms of power, flexibility, and programmability.  When I find one that
> can, I'll switch to it, but by now that seems unlikely.  In those areas
> emacs doesn't just occupy the high ground: it owns the whole damned mountain.
>
> djc
>
> PS I find that for my purposes emacs falls short in two areas: the ability
> to handle arbitrarily large files efficiently, and documentation.  How I'd
> love to see complete, up to date, readily usable documentation!  If that
> existed, this newsgroup would see less traffic.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> writes:

> There are still things I leave Emacs for, such as surfing the web.  My
> usage patterns for using things like Facebook, YouTube and a few forums
> make this much easier to do in a mouse and dedicated browser that Just
> Works.  That said, 90% of my time is spent typing at an Emacs window.

Yes, for heavily graphical web sites, Firefox is passable (too bad it
doesn't emacs key binding by default, I never took the time to configure
it so).  But for most of my web browsing (ie. software documentation),
emacs-w3m is perfect.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Daniel <unagimiyagi@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks for all the help!  Any other nuggets I'd really appreciate.
> The entire impetus for looking into emacs is b/c the programmers that
> I really am in awe of seem to really use it.  These days everywhere
> you turn there's a new GUI or language to learn, and I want to make
> sure that emacs will ultimately lessen the number of things that I
> need to learn in the future.

When I work, my workspace is basically:

- ratpoison, 
- an xterm with screen for remote computers,
- three of four emacs instances with several frame each.
- one Firefox frame,
- one acrobat reader or xpdf for pdf docs.


emacs is not multi-threaded, so to avoid pauses on long I/O, I use an
instance for ERC, and another for GNUS, in addition to the instance for
programming. 

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

"akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:

> I wouldn't call myself an emacs guru, but I've been using it for 30
> years,

[...]

> How I'd love to see complete, up to date, readily usable
> documentation!  If that existed, this newsgroup would see less
> traffic.

Huh?  Check out the manuals in the "Help" menu.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[B. T. Raven]

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> writes:
> 
>> There are still things I leave Emacs for, such as surfing the web.  My
>> usage patterns for using things like Facebook, YouTube and a few forums
>> make this much easier to do in a mouse and dedicated browser that Just
>> Works.  That said, 90% of my time is spent typing at an Emacs window.
> 
> Yes, for heavily graphical web sites, Firefox is passable (too bad it
> doesn't emacs key binding by default, I never took the time to configure
> it so).  But for most of my web browsing (ie. software documentation),
> emacs-w3m is perfect.
> 
> 

Firemacs addon for Firefox has most Emcas keybindings set by default,
and they are configurable:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141

I use with w32 Firefox and Emacs but Mozilla says this plugin works with
Mac and Unicoids too.

Ed

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[despen]

Daniel <unagimiyagi@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I started learning emacs 48 hours ago.  The motivation for this was to
> be able to do programming

Re programming have you become familiar with:

M-x compile
M-x next-error
M-x grep

Re general usage have you figured out how to create you own custom key
bindings?

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

"B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net> writes:

> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> writes:
>> 
>>> There are still things I leave Emacs for, such as surfing the web.  My
>>> usage patterns for using things like Facebook, YouTube and a few forums
>>> make this much easier to do in a mouse and dedicated browser that Just
>>> Works.  That said, 90% of my time is spent typing at an Emacs window.
>> 
>> Yes, for heavily graphical web sites, Firefox is passable (too bad it
>> doesn't emacs key binding by default, I never took the time to configure
>> it so).  But for most of my web browsing (ie. software documentation),
>> emacs-w3m is perfect.
>> 
>> 
>
> Firemacs addon for Firefox has most Emcas keybindings set by default,
> and they are configurable:
>
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141
>
> I use with w32 Firefox and Emacs but Mozilla says this plugin works with
> Mac and Unicoids too.

Thanks!

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[John Bokma]

pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:

> Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> writes:
>
>> There are still things I leave Emacs for, such as surfing the web.  My
>> usage patterns for using things like Facebook, YouTube and a few forums
>> make this much easier to do in a mouse and dedicated browser that Just
>> Works.  That said, 90% of my time is spent typing at an Emacs window.
>
> Yes, for heavily graphical web sites, Firefox is passable (too bad it
> doesn't emacs key binding by default, I never took the time to configure
> it so).  But for most of my web browsing (ie. software documentation),
> emacs-w3m is perfect.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141 maybe?

I am going to try it because I've been bugged too often the past weeks
by Firefox doing things 'wrong' (e.g. C-s doesn't do what I expect from it)

-- 
John Bokma                                                               j3b

Hacking & Hiking in Mexico -  http://johnbokma.com/
http://castleamber.com/ - Perl & Python Development

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jeff Clough]

pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:

>> Firemacs addon for Firefox has most Emcas keybindings set by default,
>> and they are configurable:
>>
>> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141
>>
>> I use with w32 Firefox and Emacs but Mozilla says this plugin works with
>> Mac and Unicoids too.
>
> Thanks!

Just to warn you, I tried this with Firefox running under Windows too.
It worked passably for a couple of days, then started falling over in
bizarre ways.  Keybindings stopped working in certain contexts, did
things the ought not to do or did nothing at all.  I have no idea what
version of the add-on that was, so maybe they've fixed it.

Then again, I have this cloud around me that eventually makes any piece
of technology go all non-deterministic and freaky, so maybe it was just
me all along.

Jeff

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Uday S Reddy]

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:

> 
> When I work, my workspace is basically:
> 
> - ratpoison, 
> - an xterm with screen for remote computers,
> - three of four emacs instances with several frame each.
> - one Firefox frame,
> - one acrobat reader or xpdf for pdf docs.

My workspace, on the other hand, has tons of GUI windows: web browsers, word, excel, pdf viewers, dvi viewers etc etc.

But none of that detracts from the power of Emacs, because Emacs is what you use when you want to type and edit (e.g., shells), navigate quickly (e.g., dired), search in big pieces of text (e.g., mail tools - VM is my favourite) or use some commands and switch back to editing (e.g., compilers, version control tools, latex etc.)

If you have frequently occurring sequences that you can automate, then that would be a big win.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[B. T. Raven]

Jeff Clough wrote:
> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
> 
>>> Firemacs addon for Firefox has most Emcas keybindings set by default,
>>> and they are configurable:
>>>
>>> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141
>>>
>>> I use with w32 Firefox and Emacs but Mozilla says this plugin works with
>>> Mac and Unicoids too.
>> Thanks!
> 
> Just to warn you, I tried this with Firefox running under Windows too.
> It worked passably for a couple of days, then started falling over in
> bizarre ways.  Keybindings stopped working in certain contexts, did
> things the ought not to do or did nothing at all.  I have no idea what
> version of the add-on that was, so maybe they've fixed it.
> 
> Then again, I have this cloud around me that eventually makes any piece
> of technology go all non-deterministic and freaky, so maybe it was just
> me all along.
> 
> Jeff


I live under that same cloud but I just adapt by not trying things again
that prove not to work. For instance in w32 I don't think you can get
C-a to move cursor to beginning of line because wind makes it be seen as
Select-all. From what I have read, Firemacs behavior is much more
predictable under Gnu/Linux. I haven't had any trouble with C-s, C-r,
C-M-u, C-v, M-v, M-w, C-y but had same problems you did across View and
Edit contexts. I am using FF 3.6 and Firemacs 3.8

Ed

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Stefan Kamphausen]

Hi,

Daniel <unagimiyagi@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I started learning emacs 48 hours ago.  The motivation for this was to
> be able to do programming and general computing tasks through just
> emacs.  I've seen the wizards who are just doing all kinds of crazy
> stuff--quickly.  I am not sure what the benefit is now, though, after
> going through the tutorial.

the tutorial will only get you going.  From there on it's a long
journey.  But beware, somewhere down the path you may pass the point of
no return.  For me all other IDEs are basically unusable for my daily
work, mainly because their editors suck so much. 

>
> Yes, I can edit text files and python files and java files no
> problem.  And I have no doubt that I'll get faster. But I thought that
> I would never have to leave the emacs terminal window.

I leave it all the time, I even keep a few terminal windows open,
although I can M-x shell.


[...]

> But again, did I expect too much out of emacs?  So far I find it to be
> about as good as BBEdit . It's a text editor but no more.  I expected
> emacs to be the one program that ruled them all.

Just a few things that I have in Emacs and don't find in other
editors...

M-x describe-mode (C-h m)
    Tell me what is available right here and now, context sensitive

M-x describe-key (C-h k)
    What happens when I press that key...

M-x view-lossage (C-h l)
    Huh? I mistyped and something strange happened.  This will tell you,
    what.

M-x where-is (C-h w)
    Find keybinding for a command

M-x apropos (C-h a)
    there was that command, named something like... uh, what was it?
    ... 

M-x mark-sexp (C-M-Space)
    Mark "logical" parts, intelligent for many, many modes.

M-x transpose-chars (C-t)
             -lines (C-x C-t)
             -sexps (C-M-t)
             -words (M-t)
    well, ... transpose things.

M-x upcase-
    downcase-
    capitalize-word

M-x fill-paragraph (M-q)
    Honestly, how can people format plain text without this??

M-x indent-for-tab-command (usually TAB)
    Emacs is the only editor I've ever used that gets indentation
    right. 

M-x grep
M-x occur
M-x anything (addon)
M-x locate


... to name but a few.  I can't really tell all things, because my
fingers have their own brain ;-)



Kind regards,
Stefan
-- 
a blessed +42 regexp of confusion (weapon in hand)
You hit. The format string crumbles and turns to dust.
user=> (clojure-buch (Locale/GERMANY))
#<URL http://www.clojure-buch.de>

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

>> How I'd love to see complete, up to date, readily usable
>> documentation!
> Huh?  Check out the manuals in the "Help" menu.

Not complete, not up to date, and not readily usable.

Readily usable documentation would include complete reference information 
for every function, variable, and macro bundled with emacs at every 
release.  It would provide some way better than string search to look for 
related concepts.  And it would be generously illustrated.

That kind of thing is real work.  I'd be pretty happy with just complete 
and up to date.

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jeff Clough]

"akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:

> Readily usable documentation would include complete reference
> information for every function, variable, and macro bundled with emacs
> at every release.  It would provide some way better than string search
> to look for related concepts.  And it would be generously illustrated.

But isn't that what describe-function or describe-variable are for?  For
what it's worth, I *do* find the manual to be dense at times, or wish
things were organized differently, but the online documentation is just
awesome.

Jeff

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

> But isn't that what describe-function or describe-variable are for?

First you have to know what you want to describe.  How is one to discover 
what functions, variables, etc are available?  After decades of using 
emacs, I'm still sometimes surprised by discovering something I didn't know 
about and would never have thought to "describe".

I'm not in the midst of a community of emacs users, so asking questions and 
learning new things is a rather heavyweight process for me -- there's no 
one to look over my shoulder and make suggestions.  That, and the 
difficulty of emacs documentation, have been a real hindrance to my 
becoming a better programmer of emacs.

But I'll still take it over anything else I know of.  Power to the people!

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Uday S Reddy]

akaiser@visi.com wrote:

> 
> Readily usable documentation would include complete reference
> information for every function, variable, and macro bundled with emacs
> at every release.  

It generally does have every function/variable that the developers want the users to know about.  (The omitted features are probably too hairy, or perhaps experimental.)

The authors of various contributed packages often don't write documentation.  I think they should, but that is how the world works.  Since all of this free software, we can't make too many demands on the contributors.  But, in reality, even such contributors generally put helpful usage info at the top of the elisp files.

> It would provide some way better than string search
> to look for related concepts.  And it would be generously illustrated.

"related concepts"?  I am not sure what you mean.  The info manual does have plenty of cross-references, which are presumably for related concepts.  

The info manual is generally meant to be read linearly, one chapter at a time.  You skip over the details on first reading, and come back to them if and when you need them.  If you try to read the manual one function at a time, I am sure you will get nowhere.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

"akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:

>>> How I'd love to see complete, up to date, readily usable
>>> documentation!
>> Huh?  Check out the manuals in the "Help" menu.
>
> Not complete,

Huh?

> not up to date,

Huh???

> and not readily usable.

Huh?????

> Readily usable documentation would include complete reference
> information for every function, variable, and macro bundled with emacs
> at every release.

Have you tried the i command in the Elisp manual?

> It would provide some way better than string search to look for
> related concepts.

The concept index, maybe?

> That kind of thing is real work.  I'd be pretty happy with just
> complete and up to date.

It does a rather good job IMO.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Tim X]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:
>
>>>> How I'd love to see complete, up to date, readily usable
>>>> documentation!
>>> Huh?  Check out the manuals in the "Help" menu.
>>
>> Not complete,
>
> Huh?
>
>> not up to date,
>
> Huh???
>
>> and not readily usable.
>
> Huh?????
>
>> Readily usable documentation would include complete reference
>> information for every function, variable, and macro bundled with emacs
>> at every release.
>
> Have you tried the i command in the Elisp manual?
>
>> It would provide some way better than string search to look for
>> related concepts.
>
> The concept index, maybe?
>
>> That kind of thing is real work.  I'd be pretty happy with just
>> complete and up to date.
>
> It does a rather good job IMO.

I agree with David. The documentation side of emacs is pretty darn good
- possibly the best of any open source project I've seen. 

Given the OPs crits, I wonder if their install is missing the elisp
reference manual? Sounds to me like they have found the emacs reference
manual, but have missed the elisp manual.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

I understand all the objections made to my saying that the emacs 
documentation is incomplete, not up to date, and not readily usable, and I 
don't feel like arguing the matter merely in technical detail.  Some 
disagree.  That's cool.  I wish them well.

I have a relative who, before email, never wrote me.  Once she had email, 
she became a very lively correspondent.  Paper wasn't her medium, but email 
was.

Got the idea?

I can read source code and I do; but there's a lot of source code, and most 
of it is unrewarding reading.  I can use info, but I don't like it.  Please 
don't tell me "use info", because info is designed and intended not for 
reading, but for brief, casual online reference, and that is its cognitive 
organization.  It's poor as a learning tool, at least for text-based and 
example-based learners like me.  I'm a fast reader and I like hectares of 
well-indexed text with lots of bookmarks: that's my best medium.

If documentation is worth doing -- and I think it is -- then it's worth 
doing well, in a way that meets the needs of the people who'll actually use 
it.  In that light, emacs documentation seems to me to hold up not too well.

Look through this newsgroup for all the places a response has said "Have 
you tried function such-and-such", or "that behavior is controlled by 
variable X except that the default is variable Y".  If the documentation 
were better, much of that would disappear.

When a literate, conscientious user with decades of programming experience, 
decades of experience writing documentation, decades of using emacs, and 
decades of support for free software says something like what I say, trying 
to argue him down is unproductive.  Of course I appreciate all the concrete 
help I've gotten here and in other such forums, but it sure would be good 
to have complete, up to date, readily usable documentation.  (Smiling.)

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jason Rumney]

On Mar 25, 6:00 am, "akai...@visi.com" <akai...@visi.com> wrote:

> I can use info, but I don't like it.

You can buy the books http://shop.fsf.org/ or print your own
http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/texinfo/Hardcopy.html

You can also convert to other online documentation formats, but if you
don't like info, then it is difficult to see how you would like other
formats, as they are mostly like info but missing some features, or at
best equivalent to info.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jay Belanger]

> Please don't tell me "use info",

Then don't use it; the documentation is available in hard copy, html,
etc.  What is your preferred form?

> because info is designed and intended not for reading, but for brief,
> casual online reference, and that is its cognitive organization.

Where did you get that idea?

> It's poor as a learning tool, at least for text-based and
> example-based learners like me.

It is text-based, and whether or not an info document is example based
depends (like everything else) on who wrote it.

> I'm a fast reader and I like hectares of well-indexed text with lots
> of bookmarks: that's my best medium.

Good info documentation is made up of hectares of well-indexed text;
bookmarks you can put in yourself.

> If documentation is worth doing -- and I think it is -- then it's
> worth doing well, in a way that meets the needs of the people who'll
> actually use it.

That is what Emacs documentation strives to do.  If there is a problem
with it, that is a bug and feel free to report it as such.

> In that light, emacs documentation seems to me to hold up not too
> well.

Nobody is required to like Emacs documentation, but your comments give
the impression that you haven't looked at it.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[despen]

"akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:

> Got the idea?

No, not even close.

> I can read source code and I do; but there's a lot of source code, and
> most of it is unrewarding reading.

No one so far has suggested that you read the source code.

> I can use info, but I don't like
> it.

Well, that explains it.

The emacs documentation is well organized, complete and easy to use.
Guess where it is?

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Tim X]

"akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:

> I understand all the objections made to my saying that the emacs documentation
> is incomplete, not up to date, and not readily usable, and I don't feel like
> arguing the matter merely in technical detail.  Some disagree.  That's cool.
> I wish them well.
>
> I have a relative who, before email, never wrote me.  Once she had email, she
> became a very lively correspondent.  Paper wasn't her medium, but email was.
>
> Got the idea?
>
> I can read source code and I do; but there's a lot of source code, and most of
> it is unrewarding reading.  I can use info, but I don't like it.  Please don't
> tell me "use info", because info is designed and intended not for reading, but
> for brief, casual online reference, and that is its cognitive organization.
> It's poor as a learning tool, at least for text-based and example-based
> learners like me.  I'm a fast reader and I like hectares of well-indexed text
> with lots of bookmarks: that's my best medium.
>
> If documentation is worth doing -- and I think it is -- then it's worth doing
> well, in a way that meets the needs of the people who'll actually use it.  In
> that light, emacs documentation seems to me to hold up not too well.
>
> Look through this newsgroup for all the places a response has said "Have you
> tried function such-and-such", or "that behavior is controlled by variable X
> except that the default is variable Y".  If the documentation were better,
> much of that would disappear.
>
> When a literate, conscientious user with decades of programming experience,
> decades of experience writing documentation, decades of using emacs, and
> decades of support for free software says something like what I say, trying to
> argue him down is unproductive.  Of course I appreciate all the concrete help
> I've gotten here and in other such forums, but it sure would be good to have
> complete, up to date, readily usable documentation.  (Smiling.)
>

Your statements are noted and on some levels your criticisms have some
validity. However, the responses you recieved are largely due to the way
you initially expressed the issue. Rather than saying that the existing
format of the documentation is not one you find condusive to your
specific style of learning or use, your statement was that emacs lacked
documentation. These are two different things. 

Emacs has very comprehensive documentation. There is a reason it is
often referred to as the self documenting editor. Most of the standard
functions and variables have documentation that is easy to lookup. Emacs
has a whole range of facilities to make it easy to find documentation on
these things. Many may not appear intuitive to anyone unfamiliar with
emacs and some people even take some time to become familiar with these
facilities, but this is a different issue to documentation not existing.

I would also suggest that your perspective on info would be worth
re-examining. The three main info manuals that come with emacs all have
extensive indexing, cross-references, bookmarks, etc. Due to the fact it
was one of the very first hypertext type manual systems, it can appear
very alien at first, but once you become accustomed to it, it is both
useful for quick reference and lookup as well as general learning of
concepts, techniques etc. Based on your style of learning, I would
highly recommend the emacs lisp intro as a good starting point. This
will give you the higher level explinations and instruction/example
approach you prefer. The emacs manual is then sful for specific areas
and the emacs lisp reference provides all the nitty gritty details you
will need to write emacs lisp or get more specific details. 

Of course, the final point to mention is that emacs is an open source
project and its documentation is only ever as good as what users are
prepared to contribute. Based on your years of experience and your
percieved weaknesses in what exists, perhaps trying to
add/improve/extend what is there would be a more profitable use of time
than complaining that what is there is no good because it doesn't suit
your (and possibly others) way of learning. It is easy to criticise, but
more rewarding to improve. If you see a weakness, do something about it.
As soon as you show your actually more interested in improving the
situation rather than just moaning about it, I expect a number of people
will be keen to help. 

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

Up to date?

     http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/elisp.html
     Updated: $Date: 2007/06/10 19:32:20 $ $Author: cyd $

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

Dear friends, no one is immune from criticism, but I've noted with 
amusement how the discussion is wandering astray with misreading and 
misunderstanding.  Did I say "that emacs lacked documentation"?  No.  Has 
"no one suggested that you read the source code"?  Someone did.  Are the 
important manuals all up to date?  Obviously not.  Is the documentation 
complete?  Clearly, no.  Is there lots of useful stuff there?  Sure.  Is it 
readily usable?  For some people, for some purposes.

But if determined, competent, insightful people sat down to design 
documentation that would be complete, most usable, and most helpful over a 
range of users, the current emacs documentation isn't what they'd come up 
with.  Far from it.  Ask any talented documentation professional.

Maybe you're motivated to track down what I've done in free software, and 
what documentation I've created.  But I can't do it all.  I appreciate the 
work other determined people put in on emacs (and other free software) and 
documentation, but it's not immune to criticism and suggestion.  Otherwise 
how will we improve things?

We're colleagues here, and we're all in the same bus.  Let's not browbeat 
one another, and let's not deceive ourselves.

emacs is The One True Editor.  It's a work of genius, and I've written 
about why that is.  But I wish it had better documentation.

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

"akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> writes:

> Up to date?
>
>     http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/elisp.html
>     Updated: $Date: 2007/06/10 19:32:20 $ $Author: cyd $

Uh, that's the time stamp of the download page, not the manual.  If you
actually bothered following a link to the manual, you'd have found

    This Info file contains edition 3.0 of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference
    Manual, corresponding to GNU Emacs version 23.1.

    This is edition 3.0 of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual,
    corresponding to Emacs version 23.1.

    Copyright © 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999,
    2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free
    Software Foundation, Inc.

So the manual you complain about is the manual of the latest released
version, updated in 2009, when this version was released.

The process was very time consuming and involved every manual page being
checked for wording and accuracy by at least two proof readers.
Checking and updating the manual was one of the main factors holding up
the release of Emacs 23.1.

If you can pinpoint any particular part of the manual that would not be
up to date or not well-crossreferenced or incomplete, go ahead.

But bashing it vaguely without bothering to look at it, on the
assumption that it might hit the right nerve if you do it hard enough in
its general direction, is not really appropriate given the
circumstances.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

> But bashing it vaguely without bothering to look at it, on the
> assumption that it might hit the right nerve if you do it hard enough in
> its general direction, is not really appropriate given the
> circumstances.

You're right.

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Tim Landscheidt]

(anonymous) wrote:

> [...]
> Maybe you're motivated to track down what I've done in free
> software, and what documentation I've created.  But I can't
> do it all.  I appreciate the work other determined people
> put in on emacs (and other free software) and documentation,
> but it's not immune to criticism and suggestion.  Otherwise
> how will we improve things?

> We're colleagues here, and we're all in the same bus.  Let's
> not browbeat one another, and let's not deceive ourselves.

> emacs is The One True Editor.  It's a work of genius, and
> I've written about why that is.  But I wish it had better
> documentation.

For someone who gloats about his own documentation successes
which I'm not motivated to track down you have marvellously
bad communication skills to get your point across.

Tim

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[akaiser]

> For someone who gloats about his own documentation successes
> which I'm not motivated to track down you have marvellously
> bad communication skills to get your point across.

Noted, Tim, and thanks so much for the help and understanding.

djc

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jay Belanger]

> Are the important manuals all up to date?  Obviously not.

Please specify something which is not up to date; that is a bug and
should be reported as such.

> Is the documentation complete?  Clearly, no.

Please say what is incomplete about it.
It comments like these of yours that give the impression that you
haven't bothered to actually read the documentation.  If you actually
have, please add details to your criticisms.

> But if determined, competent, insightful people sat down to design
> documentation that would be complete, most usable, and most helpful
> over a range of users, the current emacs documentation isn't what
> they'd come up with.  Far from it.

You should add IMHO or somesuch.  

> Maybe you're motivated to track down what I've done in free software,
> and what documentation I've created.

I'm not, because it's irrelevant.  If you have a valid criticism then it
is a valid criticism regardless of your background.  But all that I see
are unsupported remarks of how the documentation is not up to date or
not complete.  Please support these statements, or perhaps you should
stop making them.

> I appreciate the work other determined people put in on emacs (and
> other free software) and documentation, but it's not immune to
> criticism

Not at all; in fact criticism is actively requested.  But you haven't
provided anything worthwhile.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:00:03 +0100 "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> wrote: 

ac> Look through this newsgroup for all the places a response has said
ac> "Have you tried function such-and-such", or "that behavior is
ac> controlled by variable X except that the default is variable Y".  If
ac> the documentation were better, much of that would disappear.
...
ac> a literate, conscientious user with decades of programming
ac> experience, decades of experience writing documentation, decades of
ac> using emacs, and decades of support for free software

If you have so much experience you know rule #1 of writing manuals:

They Won't Read It.

followed by rule #2:

They Still Won't Read It.

and then rule #3:

They'll Complain About It.


Ted

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:00:03 +0100 "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> wrote: 
>
> ac> Look through this newsgroup for all the places a response has said
> ac> "Have you tried function such-and-such", or "that behavior is
> ac> controlled by variable X except that the default is variable Y".  If
> ac> the documentation were better, much of that would disappear.
> ...
> ac> a literate, conscientious user with decades of programming
> ac> experience, decades of experience writing documentation, decades of
> ac> using emacs, and decades of support for free software
>
> If you have so much experience you know rule #1 of writing manuals:
>
> They Won't Read It.
>
> followed by rule #2:
>
> They Still Won't Read It.
>
> and then rule #3:
>
> They'll Complain About It.

You forgot rule #4:

To Justify not Reading It.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Uday S Reddy]

akaiser@visi.com wrote:

> Dear friends, no one is immune from criticism, but I've noted with
> amusement how the discussion is wandering astray with misreading and
> misunderstanding.  Did I say "that emacs lacked documentation"?  No. 
> Has "no one suggested that you read the source code"?  Someone did.  Are
> the important manuals all up to date?  Obviously not.  Is the
> documentation complete?  Clearly, no.  Is there lots of useful stuff
> there?  Sure.  Is it readily usable?  For some people, for some purposes.

I think everybody jumped up and started objecting, not because they weren't open to criticism, but because what you have been saying is completely contrary to our own experience.  I personally think Emacs documentation is one of the best there is.  It is clear and concise, well-explained, and quite complete.  Ok, it takes some effort to read it.  But if you do read it -- linearly as I mentioned before -- you are well-rewarded.

By the way, I didn't say that you should read the "source code".  I said that people that contribute software often put their documentation at the top of their source code files as *comments*, instead of writing separate info documentation.  But, when such contributed software is accepted into Gnu Emacs, Gnu people often add the documentation in the info.  An example is the longlines package, which I started using several years ago.  I was glad to see that it got included in the Gnu Emacs release and equally glad to see that it got its own section in the info manual.  

Despite your claimed expertise with Emacs, I must say that your comments are quite off the mark.

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Galen Boyer]

What do you actually expect from documentation?  That, as you read it,
it realizes what you are searching for and all of the sudden, you are
transported to exactly the statement you need to read?

Why don't you actually ask the question a different way?  Hi, I'm trying
to figure out how to do XXX.  What steps should I take to figure out how
to perform that in Emacs.  Maybe you would learn how Emacs is the
"self-documenting editor".

-- 
Galen Boyer

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:19:25 +0100, "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> wrote:
> Up to date?
>
>     http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/elisp.html
>     Updated: $Date: 2007/06/10 19:32:20 $ $Author: cyd $

That's an online copy of an old version of the manual.  The bundled
manual in your local Emacs installation should be more useful, faster to
access, more convenient to search through the built-in index and
certainly more up-to-date.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> writes:

> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:19:25 +0100, "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com> wrote:
>> Up to date?
>>
>>     http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/elisp.html
>>     Updated: $Date: 2007/06/10 19:32:20 $ $Author: cyd $
>
> That's an online copy of an old version of the manual.

No, it isn't.  That's an online _page_ from 2007 pointing to an online
copy of the version of the manual corresponding with the last released
version of Emacs.

> The bundled manual in your local Emacs installation should be more
> useful, faster to access, more convenient to search through the
> built-in index and certainly more up-to-date.

The latter not unless he is installing a developer snapshot/pretest of
Emacs.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jim Diamond]

On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:

> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,

Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.

Can you explain what you mean when you say "does PDFs out of the box"?

Thanks.
				Jim

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Andreas Politz]

Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond@deletethis.AcadiaU.ca> writes:

> On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:
>
>> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,
>
> Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.
>
> Can you explain what you mean when you say "does PDFs out of the box"?
>
> Thanks.
> 				Jim

It sounds like he was referring to `doc-view-mode'.

-ap

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jeff Clough]

Andreas Politz <politza@fh-trier.de> writes:

>> On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,
>>
>> Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.
>>
>> Can you explain what you mean when you say "does PDFs out of the box"?
>>
>> Thanks.
>> 				Jim
>
> It sounds like he was referring to `doc-view-mode'.

Yes, that was what I was referring to.  Dired + this has pretty much
replaced whatever is pre-installed for PDF viewing on Fedora, for my
purposes, a few minor gripes aside (none of which are important).

Jeff

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Glenn Morris]

Jim Diamond wrote:

> On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:
>
>> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,
>
> Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.

Don't use apropos to search for a concept, instead search the manual.

C-h i
m emacs RET
i pdf TAB RET # completes to "PDF FILE"

And this takes you to the section "Document Viewing" in the manual.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Tim X]

Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond@deletethis.AcadiaU.ca> writes:

> On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:
>
>> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,
>
> Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.
>
> Can you explain what you mean when you say "does PDFs out of the box"?
>
Lookup doc-view mode in the manual and with apropos.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jim Diamond]

On 2010-04-20 at 14:15 ADT, Andreas Politz <politza@fh-trier.de> wrote:
> Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond@deletethis.AcadiaU.ca> writes:
>
>> On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,
>>
>> Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.
>>
>> Can you explain what you mean when you say "does PDFs out of the box"?
>>
>> Thanks.
>> 				Jim
>
> It sounds like he was referring to `doc-view-mode'.

Andreas,

thanks very much for your reply, I was unfamiliar with doc-view-mode.

				Jim

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Jim Diamond]

On 2010-04-20 at 14:36 ADT, Glenn Morris <rgm+news@stanford.edu> wrote:
> Jim Diamond wrote:
>
>> On 2010-03-21 at 18:02 ADT, Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Emacs does PDFs out of the box,
>>
>> Using either 23.1 or 24.0.50, "apropos" has very little to say about PDFs.

> Don't use apropos to search for a concept, instead search the manual.

I guess I can't argue with that advice, given that searching the
manual does help.  The problem is that I thought I was looking for a
function (something that read/loaded/displayed PDF files), not a
concept.  Perhaps I am missing a lot of functionality of emacs which
would be useful, but I've always (up until now) found what I wanted
with apropos.  Sometimes I've followed that up with looking in the
manual, but rarely have I needed to.

Anyway, thanks for the (*ahem*) info.

				Jim

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

> I guess I can't argue with that advice, given that searching the
> manual does help.  The problem is that I thought I was looking for a
> function (something that read/loaded/displayed PDF files), not a
> concept.  Perhaps I am missing a lot of functionality of emacs which
> would be useful, but I've always (up until now) found what I wanted
> with apropos.  Sometimes I've followed that up with looking in the
> manual, but rarely have I needed to.

No solution is perfect.  Apropos searches the docstrings (which tend to
describe the actual code), so it will work well if you know the exact
term used inside Emacs to refer to your functionality.  But if you
happen to use another term, it often fails miserably.  The manual
writers OTOH make a conscious effort to mention not just the precise
term used inside Emacs but also the more generic terms that are related
to it.


        Stefan

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Uday S Reddy]

On 4/21/2010 7:23 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>
> Apropos searches the docstrings (which tend to
> describe the actual code), so it will work well if you know the exact
> term used inside Emacs to refer to your functionality.  But if you
> happen to use another term, it often fails miserably.  The manual
> writers OTOH make a conscious effort to mention not just the precise
> term used inside Emacs but also the more generic terms that are related
> to it.

Gosh, that explanation should be printed in bold font, framed and posted in every Emacs-user's wall!

Cheers,
Uday

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Lennart Borgman]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 2:24 PM, akaiser@visi.com <akaiser@visi.com> wrote:
>> For someone who gloats about his own documentation successes
>> which I'm not motivated to track down you have marvellously
>> bad communication skills to get your point across.
>
> Noted, Tim, and thanks so much for the help and understanding.


There are sure glitches in the manual. It is a live document
continously beeing worked on. You can of course contribute on the same
term as anyone else. This mean you must be more specific, using
examples.

Regarding using info I think it works very well. In the beginning I
thought html documentation would be better, but I have changed my
mind.

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 2:24 PM, akaiser@visi.com <akaiser@visi.com> wrote:
>>> For someone who gloats about his own documentation successes
>>> which I'm not motivated to track down you have marvellously
>>> bad communication skills to get your point across.
>>
>> Noted, Tim, and thanks so much for the help and understanding.
>
>
> There are sure glitches in the manual. It is a live document
> continously beeing worked on. You can of course contribute on the same
> term as anyone else. This mean you must be more specific, using
> examples.
>
> Regarding using info I think it works very well. In the beginning I
> thought html documentation would be better, but I have changed my
> mind.

That's comparing apples and oranges.  Emacs' info reader is a great
application, and HTML is a file format.  It certainly would be feasible
to let Emacs info read HTML files (probably a subset of HTML tailored
for info).  At the time info was written, HTML was not yet around the
corner.

For the end user, it counts that Emacs info is great.  It could be
similarly great if the underlying file format were HTML (after all, the
end user never gets to see it).

It just happens that it isn't.  And nobody went to the pain to move info
to HTML since, after all, the end user never gets to see it.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Joel J. Adamson]

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Sorry I'm coming into the game so late, I think my university has been
withholding mail from this list.  I have a few points to add to the
discussion.

akaiser@visi.com <akaiser@visi.com> wrote:

> I can read source code and I do; but there's a lot of source code, and
> most of it is unrewarding reading.  I can use info, but I don't like
> it.  Please don't tell me "use info", because info is designed and
> intended not for reading, but for brief, casual online reference, and
> that is its cognitive organization.  

Those ("brief, casual online reference") are called man pages.  An info
manual is actually a printed book, laid out for reading *the whole
thing*.  It is, in many ways, the opposite of a man page.  Take any GNU
Manual and read it from the introduction and you'll notice that it
starts with concepts first.  There are very clear standards about how to
write these manuals[1].  And whenever I take the time to read one from
the beginning it pays off hugely.  Then when people say "How do you know
how to do that?" I say "I read the manual."

Also, if you really want to figure out how to work in Emacs, you can go
get a book about it[2].

If you don't "get" Emacs, that's fine.  Go back to using Eclipse or
BBedit or whatever you like[3].  I think the reason people like me like
Emacs is because it is in line with their way of thinking.  One that
includes always learning as much as you can.

Another thing to note is that when I first loaded Emacs (on Windows) I
didn't "get it" either.  But after I read the tutorial and worked with
it a little bit, I knew that it was The Right Thing.  Mainly because I
already had experience with Unix and remembered a time when I might have
used Emacs ten years previously (i.e. the commands were familiar).

Also, you don't have to do everything in Emacs.  I just happen to use
mainly Emacs and Firefox, because my work consists mostly of coding,
email and looking things up on the web.  I can accomplish most of that
just using Emacs.  If your work is different, then that's your life and
no one should tell you to "just get it."[4]

My last comment is that you mentioned "going back to GUI."  Are you
using a version of Emacs that doesn't have a GUI?  If you are, you're
missing a HUGE advantage of Emacs.  For one the menus have the
key bindings printed on the far right.  For another, using Emacs with the
mouse is much more pleasurable and productive than using many other
(supposedly GUI-oriented) programs.  You can do things with the mouse in
Emacs that you just can't do in other programs[5].  I noticed you're
using Windows, so try using Emacs on a Unix-like system and you'll
notice the difference.  Copying and pasting with the mouse is way
easier; you can drag text from other applications and drop it into
Emacs; you can navigate tags and do lots of other things with Speedbar.
The only thing missing is dragging and dropping text in Emacs, but I
don't really miss it.

Emacs has an excellent GUI.

Joel

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/

[2]  http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006488

[3] I won't make the suggestion that you go back to vi; I can't wish
that on another person without it weighing heavily on my conscience

[4]  On the other hand, you'd be surprised how much work you actually
can get done this way ;)

[5] Show me the command for deleting a whole line with a single
double-click in Microsoft Word.  Then show me how to go back three
occurrences of the word "word" in fewer than six keystrokes (without
typing the word itself).  Word!

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Servedio Lab
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

FSF Member #8164
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj

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Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

> It just happens that it isn't.  And nobody went to the pain to move info
> to HTML since, after all, the end user never gets to see it.

Actually, the end user does get to see it in two different ways:
1- the end user gets to see that reformatting for different window-width
   doesn't work.  And when some text elements get hidden (xrefs), the
   text formatting doesn't look too hot.
2- the end user gets to see very fast (even on slow machines) rendering
   because there's pretty much no text processing taking place.


        Stefan

Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Joseph Brenner]

"B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net> writes:

> Firemacs addon for Firefox has most Emcas keybindings set by default,
> and they are configurable:
>
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141

I use the "It's All Text" plug-in, so I can click a button at the bottom
of a textarea to edit things in emacs itself:

  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4125/

To get that to work, I've got my EDITOR envar set to emacsclient:

  export EDITOR=emacsclient

And in my ~/.emacs:

  (server-start)

Since I usually have a lot of emacs frames kicking around,
sometimes I have to hunt for which one emacsclient is using, but
that's not too terrible.