Re: Some developement questions

[phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)]

Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> writes:

> I find the new one a little bit more simple, very basic, but some
> details are updated in a less technical language. It assumes that for
> new users coming from windows, vim, sublime, Visual Studio...; Emacs
> will be a more different (hard maybe) experience than what they expect
> and are used to.

Yep, I started off my assuming modern terminology, then associated the
Emacs terminology with it. I think that this is important.

> The actual tutorial is fine, but in my modest opinion I would like to
> suggest some pedagogical changes like divide it by numbered lessons, put
> numbers to the tasks, add summaries per lesson, some aesthetic
> horizontal lines... Please, give a look for example to the vimtutor. It
> has a very good approach in this aspects.

All of this would make sense. In the end, my thought was to write the
tutorial in org, then generate it either to info or to HTML, maybe
pimping up EWW a bit to handle things better. Numbering would become
automatic then.

> Respecting to content maybe some details about using overwrite-mode
> (using the Insert key of course),

This is the kind of thing that I would rather not do. Overwrite-mode is
just the implementation detail of how Emacs achieves overwriting is a
standard function of most applications.


> moving/copping/switching lines/words/letters, interactive replace
> (M-%) shell commands (M-| and M-! and in-place insertion),
> insert-buffer/file and equivalent commands. Practical examples about
> killing N words or N lines and paste them somewhere else. Goto line is
> also important on the beginning.
>
> In i think that the emacs tutorial should explain at least the same
> points than vimtutor respecting to text edition because that's the first
> thing the user expects to do in emacs. If some edition actions in the
> vimtutor are not possible or very complex to do in emacs maybe we need
> to consider how to add them in a simpler way because they are very basic
> (for example copy the current line requires C-a C-SPC C-e M-w). These
> details are more important and basic for a new user than recursive
> editing modes or talking about multiple frames/windows in the first day.
>
> We should also mention there helpful things like which-key, ido-mode,
> linum which makes our lives easier.

Yeah. The reason that I finish off with installing packages is that I
think as branching tutorial would be the right thing to do, extending
from ELPA.

Phil