From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals Date: Fri, 08 May 2015 18:06:22 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87fv77barj.fsf@gnu.org> <87zj5fgpd8.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83h9rnp0yy.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1431122824 7557 80.91.229.3 (8 May 2015 22:07:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 22:07:04 +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 00:06:54 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 1YqqQ0-0007YU-3f for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 00:06:52 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57755 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YqqPz-00056d-4S for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 08 May 2015 18:06:51 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46728) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YqqPk-00055Q-QP for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 08 May 2015 18:06:37 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YqqPh-00023f-Jn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 08 May 2015 18:06:36 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:48385) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YqqPh-000212-CL for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 08 May 2015 18:06:33 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YqqPe-0007QT-D9 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2015 00:06:30 +0200 Original-Received: from 69-165-139-108.dsl.teksavvy.com ([69.165.139.108]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 09 May 2015 00:06:30 +0200 Original-Received: from monnier by 69-165-139-108.dsl.teksavvy.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 09 May 2015 00:06:30 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 25 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 69-165-139-108.dsl.teksavvy.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:beKlZ+kCY1C8ttdha1/wJnpup44= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:104313 Archived-At: > 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. 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. 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. 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). Stefan