From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Baby Emacs? Date: Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:03:12 +0200 Organization: Informatimago Message-ID: <87bpn0cse7.fsf@galatea.local> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1249087249 30970 80.91.229.12 (1 Aug 2009 00:40:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 00:40:49 +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 Aug 01 02:40:42 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MX2eQ-0001Qn-G7 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:40:42 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:33763 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MX2eP-00020U-NI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:40:41 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 63 Original-X-Trace: individual.net WUeNYtV+etfgS0nKv2hGGAtY42/h4HIGUViT9nLvcqehFyThlw Cancel-Lock: sha1:ZmI1Y2Y4MjY5YjBkNGNhYmU4Mzg2NGMwMjViNzA3YmJkMTRiZTFjNA== sha1:8894wJcwTsm8SlgAKvCqvE5MmIY= Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwAQMAAABtzGvEAAAABlBMVEUAAAD///+l2Z/dAAAA oElEQVR4nK3OsRHCMAwF0O8YQufUNIQRGIAja9CxSA55AxZgFO4coMgYrEDDQZWPIlNAjwq9 033pbOBPtbXuB6PKNBn5gZkhGa86Z4x2wE67O+06WxGD/HCOGR0deY3f9Ijwwt7rNGNf6Oac l/GuZTF1wFGKiYYHKSFAkjIo1b6sCYS1sVmFhhhahKQssRjRT90ITWUk6vvK3RsPGs+M1RuR mV+hO/VvFAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== X-Accept-Language: fr, es, en X-Disabled: X-No-Archive: no User-Agent: Gnus/5.1008 (Gnus v5.10.8) Emacs/22.3 (darwin) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:171417 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:66602 Archived-At: Michael Ekstrand writes: > kj wrote: >> I am teaching programming to a few co-workers (research biologists). >> Most of them want some recommendation for a text editor. Of course, >> I recommend to them Emacs, but I would prefer to recommend a simpler >> version of Emacs, one with fewer features, and also fewer ways to >> get confused. Is there such a thing? > > If you really do want a simpler Emacs, I would second the recommendation > of zile. > > I question, however, the advisedness of this. IMO, the major advantage > to using Emacs is its feature set, not its key bindings or a particular > editing model. If you don't want the feature set, there are other > editors which are easier to learn than Emacs (such as nano, gedit, or > JEdit). > > I'd go with a normal Emacs with a sane and simple initial configuration. > Sure, it has lots of ways to get confused, but it has the real > advantages of Emacs available. In any case, emacs itself is a simplier emacs. You only have to learn a few keybindings to be able to use it. If you have a modern keyboard (ie. with arrow keys) you can skip cursor movement chords. So the only remaining key chords you need to learn to use emacs -Q like you'd use nano are: C-x C-f find-file C-x C-s save-file C-x C-k kill-buffer C-x C-c save-buffers-kill-emacs C-x o other-window (sometimes emacs opens 'windows') C-x 1 delete-other-windows C-g cancel (cancel the current command) C-q escape (insert the following literal key chord into the buffer) C-r search backward C-s search forward C-w kill-region (cut) M-w kill-ring-save (copy) C-y yank (paste) C-SPC set-mark-command F1 F1 help All the editing you can do with the arrows, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn, DEL (or the mouse). And when you feel ready to use more emacs features, you can read the tutorial: F1 t (as explained by the help F1 F1). Now if you want, we could make a mode that would bind these commands to other keys (ie. cut C-x, copy C-c, paste C-v, find-file C-o, save-file C-s, etc ; but you wouldn't learn the standard emacs key bindings), and that would disable all the other keybindings (but self-insert-command of course), so that the user who types random key chords may not entrap himself. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__