Re: Some developement questions

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2018 20:49:48 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> I just suggest a cleanup/deletion/ deprecation advice in Elpa/Melpa. It is not a programming suggestion, but
> almost a logistical one. Because for new users it is confusing which package to install and the suggestions in
> the Wiki are usually the older options. So basically I have the feeling we have a volume of packages
> unmaintainable for the number of active developers I see. For example most of the documentation suggests
> to use smex while it is abandoned and the "successor" is amx fully functional and maintained. New users will
> install smex facing the already solved bugs. But also some new packages will use the old one for new
> purposes. Younger people need to know emacs from scratch as they grow with other completely different
> tools. 

This is a volunteer project.  Someone with motivation and time on
their hands should (and is welcome to) start a project of better and
more up-to-date documentation of available packages.  One possible
place to let users access this is when they use package.el to browse
the list of available packages and decide what they want to install.

> >Emacs is much more flexible, and different people have different
> >needs.
> >
> Yes, but someone who opens emacs for the first time will open it to edit text and very probably to program, he
> should have color preferences and for sure he doesn't know how to add packages and the elpa repository
> (maybe don't even know about about something called elpa), so, the most basic customization options. If
> comes from vim/nano/gedit he will need some assistance that emacs can bring (not only the tutorial, but
> evile, bindkeys), but he don't know how get there. Maybe he prefers to use always the terminal version instead
> of the graphical one, or he will read the manual and something keybinds doesn't work, and blame emacs
> when tmux was the guilty. 

Exactly my point: you have just enumerated at least 3 different
classes of users, and the solution is different for every one of them.
Finding a way of being friendly to each class is the problem to solve.
One possible solution could be groups of Custom options that are
likely to be relevant to each class of users, and writing
customization commands that target each class.  Patches are welcome.

> BTW: Whats the best documentation (from
> scratch) to learn elisp and the emacs developement environment? Do you have anything like for example:
> "The Linux Programming Interface" from "Michael Kerrisk" but for Emacs? 

Take a look at Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp, it comes
with Emacs.