From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Is Emacs very alive, active and improving? Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 04:55:44 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <874na9nr1y.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> References: <87r4ddo4yp.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1377745215 19605 80.91.229.3 (29 Aug 2013 03:00:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 03:00:15 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 29 05:00:19 2013 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 1VEsT4-0003Et-UA for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 29 Aug 2013 05:00:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39521 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VEsT4-0008IZ-1S for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 28 Aug 2013 23:00:18 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!goblin3!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 64 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: VVbyYd/iFZoeWNmD9i++cQ.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:rw+Mk54y4X306Nclewz8wcth3kc= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:200884 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:93152 Archived-At: Kevin Montuori writes: > I always took self documenting to mean that what documentation > there is (and there's a lot of it!) is installed with the > application. There seems to be a trend of documentation wikis > or online-only docs Actually, it is the Emacs documentation that is "on-line" (as opposed to printed on paper) :) (You might remember the company Sierra On-Line who did the horribly bad Kings Quest games.) I agree whatever documentation there is should always be included with the software itself. You should never need Internet access to get the manual. If you have Internet access, you should be able to find errata, or (optimally) be able to update your static manual on your HDD. I remember some applications of the distant past - when you stroke the "help" command, what you saw was Connecting to the help server... and you never got what you needed. As for wikis, I think the idea is great, but it has to be a complement (as you say) because it only works on the Internet, which you cannot access (again, as you say) with your own razor-sharp tools, *and*, it must be dedicated to something *big*, so that many people use it. The "real" wiki, Wikipedia, is great, as so many people use it (although some of the articles are a bit boring to read, IMHO), and an Emacs wiki is a great idea, because it is a big subject, with lots of details, and an active and creative (to say the least) user base - but, for each company or piece of software to has its own wiki - with 20 articles, all stubs - that's ridiculous. I wrote something cool recently to make Wikipedia searches from Emacs. It is actually only the last couple of lines that do it - the rest is just fancy stuff - it will default to the region, if there is one, or the word at point, and it will show it if it isn't too long, etc. Anyhow: (defun wiki-search (str) "Search Wikipedia for STR. Show the \"printable\" version." (interactive (let*((default-search (if (region-active-p) (region-to-string) (thing-at-point 'word) )) (max-len 20) (peek (if (> (length default-search) max-len) (format "%s..." (substring default-search 0 max-len) ) default-search) )) (list (read-string (format " Search string (%s): " peek) nil nil default-search )))) (w3m-new-tab) (w3m (format "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%s\&printable=yes" str) ) ) -- Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below) computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573 internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573