From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Uday S Reddy Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:32:23 +0000 Organization: Janet Usenet Reading Service. Message-ID: References: <877hp5e2op.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1273056893 29833 80.91.229.12 (5 May 2010 10:54:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 10:54:53 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed May 05 12:54:52 2010 connect(): No such file or directory Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1O9cFf-0003qW-FI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 05 May 2010 12:54:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:45428 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1O9cFc-00077R-QW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 05 May 2010 06:54:48 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!newsfeed.esat.net!feeder.news.heanet.ie!feed4.jnfs.ja.net!feed2.jnfs.ja.net!jnfs.ja.net!times.reader.netnews.ja.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 20 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: acws-0068.cs.bham.ac.uk Original-X-Trace: north.jnrs.ja.net 1269372718 26124 147.188.194.56 (23 Mar 2010 19:31:58 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@north.jnrs.ja.net Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:31:58 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) In-Reply-To: Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:177550 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 04 May 2010 16:48:43 -0400 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:73369 Archived-At: 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