From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Gene Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Where is Emacs Lisp taught ? Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2018 12:30:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: References: <5B8BFDC9-A07B-48FE-8C97-1BB0B84E5577@gmail.com> <53705d26-8a69-4453-aed9-ab72a0cd139e@googlegroups.com> <87woq2ewza.fsf@portable.galex-713.eu> <668D7901-5829-436B-ABE5-4FEE09D73136@gmail.com> <87muqydbxj.fsf@portable.galex-713.eu> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1540928007 11672 195.159.176.226 (30 Oct 2018 19:33:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2018 19:33:27 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2018 19:30:48 +0000 User-Agent: G2/1.0 To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 30 20:33:23 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1gHZlS-0002vV-Hk for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2018 20:33:22 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55155 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gHZnY-0000Q8-UW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Oct 2018 15:35:32 -0400 X-Received: by 2002:a37:5805:: with SMTP id m5-v6mr27212qkb.58.1540927848692; Tue, 30 Oct 2018 12:30:48 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:ac8:6895:: with SMTP id m21-v6mr445qtq.1.1540927848518; Tue, 30 Oct 2018 12:30:48 -0700 (PDT) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!e5-v6no29715qtr.0!news-out.google.com!c29-v6ni2948qtg.1!nntp.google.com!e5-v6no29712qtr.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=72.43.228.70; posting-account=xePGxQoAAAAgJalA5zaHmrGIX9Wk_gLW Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 72.43.228.70 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:224380 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:118509 Archived-At: On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 3:05:32 AM UTC-4, Alan wrote: > First, I am not a programmer. I have a different perspective. =20 > I see Elisp as an integral component of Emacs---the Extensible Self=20 > Documenting Editor. =20 > That is the very core of it. This is sets itself apart from any > other editor. =20 > I will never be an expert at lisp, but I can extend Emacs > while referring to documentation of the editor and Elisp, all at my > fingertips. =20 > It is a stroke of brilliance, just one of the reasons I am > grateful for the work of Richard Stallman. We can certainly be grateful that he followed the lead of *someone else* wh= o first pimped out the emacs of day with a lisp REPL. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosling_Emacs I suppose that somebody wanting to add a lisp to a text editor today might = attempt to shoe-horn in s7 scheme, script fu, or such. =20 > Emacs fell into my hands unexpectedly, just when I seriously needed a too= l > for my project developing a lexicon of animal names in a Pacific language > complex. =20 Alas, if only Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson had emacs available during = their field work in the Pacific! > I was looking for an editor that I could make a simple macro to > type letters with diacritical marks. Multi-Edit seems to me to work just > fine. It was all I had, provided to me by a linguist. =20 > The trial version was "free", in dollars and cents terms;=20 > yet it was a form of cripple ware: > to get the full use of it would require a manual, which would cost 350.00= , > an impossible sum for me. =20 > Emacs came with an amazing manual. >=20 > I had seen the very name of the Free Software Foundation, and, not knowin= g > anything about it's purpose or cause, I wrote to request some free > software. =20 > I lived on an isolated island, so it took some time before I > received a package with 13 3-1/2" disks, with a port of Emacs to Windows > 3, called Demacs, and a suite of unix utilities ported to Windows 3 by > Cygnus, if I recall correctly. =20 > This was in about 1992. Unix tools were > perfect for my intended project of "digitizing" a growing body of data on > animal names. Sort and string manipulation utilities were most welcome. > So I had a toolkit of unimaginable utility, perfectly suited to my need. > Elisp was part and parcel of it all. I had some limited familiarity with > computers, so I was able to work my way though the documentation---all of > it included as part of Emacs, and available just when one needed it. Thi= s > is another part of the brilliant scheme that is Emacs: the TexInfo > documentation could not be easier to use. >=20 > I haven't told this story often enough, but it is beside the point. =20 > The point is the Elisp is integrated with the editor,=20 > making it quite unique in my experience. =20 > It can be learned independently, absent any course, though > I admit I have struggled to learn the little that I have, and to do > complicated things I needed help. =20 > I would think that a course in Elisp would be extremely interesting. =20 I'm thinking that `a' one-size-fits-all course couldn't possibly=20 be as useful to one and all using a domain-specific language capable of such a broad spectrum of domains spread out before some a broad spectrum of users. When I'm trying to `sell' emacs to those weened-on and accustomed-to Word p= rocessors, GUIs with Pull-down menus, and such I not only do NOT pitch elis= p as a selling feature, I recommend they use nothing BUT the pull-down menu= s for the first 3 weeks for fear that the command-line like minibuffer used= with M-x will scare them away and back to something more `User friendly' .= .. EG GUIized pull-down menued touch screen stuff ... just like they are no= w imprinted-upon. > First, one needs to find a young person > whose interests align well with the tool. As contrasted with old dogs dating their emacs back to '92? I was using UEdit and micro-Emacs on a Commodore Amiga back then; neither h= ad elisp. Though a year later I was using AMXlisp on the Amiga to do assignments in c= ourse in which fellow students were using common lisp. > Enough said. Too much. Not enough! What personal preferences, factors, and preferences do you imagine could be= factored into lessons customizable to a broad assortment of humanity? We have multiple intelligences tests now, which transcend reductionist sing= le-number IQ. We have an assortment of temperament tests which seemingly would allow some= dispatching code elisp itself could use to present someone/anyone with a = temperamental orientation and multiple intelligences configuration with a l= esson apropos for that particular student. > Alan Davis Thanks for the period piece, Alan! Now I'm wondering if a quarter century from now a comparable personal accou= nt will appear which starts with something like, "It was 2018 and I and my = friends were not as smart as our phones. A true friend turned us on to som= ething retro ... this ancient text editor which some MIT hackers started in= the previous century. ...." I'm painfully aware that those of us in the 70's, 80's, and 90's didn't hav= e the glut of free and/or dirt cheep `apps' which the modern touch screen u= sers have available. I'm thinking that emacs, gnutils, and such are going to be a hard sell for = those spoiled by touch screens, GUI OSes, and the inability to touch type. As much as I'd like to see mainstream folk using emacs and elisp, I've noti= ced the chasm between those of us qualifying as literate or semi-literate a= nd the point-and-click `geniuses' expanding beyond capacity to quantum leap= ... let alone their interest. Thanks again! Gene