From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: MBR Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 12:15:26 -0400 Message-ID: <55561B9E.4070101@arlsoft.com> References: <554C9356.5000204@gmail.com> <20150508125314086261755@bob.proulx.com> <87bnhuc177.fsf@mbork.pl> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1431706562 8211 80.91.229.3 (15 May 2015 16:16:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:16:02 +0000 (UTC) To: Rusi , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri May 15 18:15:51 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 1YtIH8-0005Mu-Gd for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 18:15:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60373 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtIH7-0003Wa-Pz for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 12:15:49 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46823) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtIGr-0003WV-Au for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 12:15:35 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtIGn-0001T1-Sj for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 12:15:33 -0400 Original-Received: from [205.234.186.191] (port=45816 helo=hampton.hostforweb.net) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YtIGn-0001Sx-Fc for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 15 May 2015 12:15:29 -0400 Original-Received: from c-24-34-107-193.hsd1.ma.comcast.net ([24.34.107.193]:51999 helo=[192.168.1.121]) by hampton.hostforweb.net with esmtpsa (TLSv1:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.85) (envelope-from ) id 1YtIGj-004GQD-BJ; Fri, 15 May 2015 11:15:26 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.4.0 In-Reply-To: X-OutGoing-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - hampton.hostforweb.net X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - gnu.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - arlsoft.com X-Get-Message-Sender-Via: hampton.hostforweb.net: authenticated_id: mbr+arlsoft.com/only user confirmed/virtual account not confirmed X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x (barebone) [generic] X-Received-From: 205.234.186.191 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.14 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:104456 Archived-At: What about trying a different approach? Telling them, "Learn Emacs. You'll find it useful in the long run," is guaranteed to make them hate it. It's like being told, "Eat your vegetables. They're good for you." Instead, why not challenge them to do some task whose end result they'll consider useful, but that you know will be a royal pain in the ass to do with a simple-minded text editor. Make sure it's not something contrived. Tell them to use whatever editor they're most comfortable with. After 15 min. or more of tedious editing in their underpowered, brain-dead editor, show them that you can do the same thing in 15 seconds using some general-purpose Emacs feature. I say "general-purpose Emacs feature" because it's important that they see that they could use this functionality for lots of tasks they run into all the time. So I wouldn't choose C-M-q, (i.e. c-indent-exp) because that's too specific to a single task. Instead, how about something like C-x (, (i.e. kmacro-start-macro) followed by C-x e (i.e. kmacro-end-and-call-macro) with a large repeat count. You can reformat from any format to damned near any other format just by showing Emacs how to do it once and then repeating it. And telling Emacs to remember and replay what you just typed is much easier for a newbie to comprehend than doing it with a regular expression. Even better than you showing off would be to plant a shill in the crowd. All you need is one student who already knows some Emacs. Then when he's finished in under a minute and they're still tediously slaving away 15 or 20 minutes later, they're going to be asking him how the hell he did it so fast. He'll sell Emacs for you. If you start off by showing (not telling) them Emacs' value, I bet there will be a lot less grumbling about having to learn a few unfamiliar keystrokes for navigating. Mark Rosenthal On 5/10/15 10:01 AM, Rusi wrote: > On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 8:18:20 AM UTC+5:30, Bob Proulx wrote: >> Marcin Borkowski wrote: >>> Bob Proulx wrote: >>>> A student says that they really want to learn Calculus. They know >>>> that Calculus is very powerful and can be used to solve many problems. >>>> I suggest that they learn Arithmetic first. They respond, >>>> "Arithmetic! Have you learned Arithmetic? Arithmetic is old. Should >>>> I learn Arithmetic? For example, will Arithmetic talk about >>>> Calculus?" >>> Nice try;-). But this analogy is flawed: software, unlike mathematical >>> theories, is subject to change. >> Has emacs changed that much? I don't think it has. It is still very >> much the same. > Sad but true > > After 20 years of using, teaching with, and making my students use emacs, > for the first time this year I taught python using Idle rather than emacs. > Some nuisances... C-a now means Select-all whereas my nerve-pathways know it as > Beginning-of-line etc etc > Also some sadness... however one needs to get real and selling emacs to students > has led to lot of funny looks and some significant hostility. > > The tutorial with C-f C-b... for cursor movements was I guess the last straw > > What I describe may sound like exaggeration but that's only because I am trying to > reconstruct what happens between noob and emacs when I am not around. > > Student starts reading tutorial and sees the C-f C-b stuff: > > - Some follow it wonder about the weirdness but then get on with it > - Some just use cursor keys like the rest of the planet ignore the C-f C-b > stuff and get on with it > - But a few notice that cursor keys work as they should but is not documented > and are a bit confused/bewildered > - And of those few, a few get real HOSTILE > > Now if the cursor-keys didn't work it would not be so bad > And ideal would be for them to work AND be documented > But works and NOT documented/demoed in tutorial... and there are serious > allegations of ATTITUDE! > > [And I am implicated with the emacs-devs :-) ] >