Re: Open Hypspec with w3m

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Jason Earl <jearl@notengoamigos.org> writes:

> On Fri, Jan 28 2011, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>
>>> within my grasp.  You do realize, of course, that you are essentially
>>> volunteering to look over some potentially very bad Elisp.  The only
>>
>> There's no worse Elisp than the one that's not yet written.
>> And believe me, I've seen my share of bad Elisp,
>
> Thank you very much for the encouragement then.
>

The things I've found with lisp generally and elisp in particular
(because I use it more and more)

* Lisp and elisp are actually very easy to learn. Very little syntax, no
  difficult to remember operator precedence and consistent form.

* Mastering lisp is an on-going process. I suspect this can take years.
  Its actually one of the aspects I like about it as I am always seeing
  new bits of code or ways of expressing various common idioms. I find
  this keeps things 'fresh' and interesting. 

* Really search the manual. Many times I've been trying to implement
  some extension or customization and am struggeling with how to
  implement some feature only to find, after searching the elisp manual,
  that either it already exists or most of the hard work has been done
  and all I need to do is glue the bits together. 

* Have a go. Just get in there and do it. At first, it will probably be
  slow and sometimes frustrating, but it gets much easier as the various
  pennies drop into place. While everyone is a bit different, many find
  (including me) that writing lisp is almost like a flow of
  consciousness - as I'm working out the solution, I'm jotting down
  these notes/rough draft and it just turns out that my notes are lisp.
  Often, once the basic outline is written down, all I need to do is go
  through refining and editing "the story".  

* Use the scratch buffer and IELM (M-x ielm) to experiment and try out
  ideas. I find 'exploring' a problem this way really helps cement a
  solution. Also useful when learning. 

* Read/browse the source code. You will learn various techniques and
  'tricks' and get to see how to do many common tasks. This is an
  excellent way of understanding a new mode and gives you insight into
  how you can tweak it for yourself. 

As you get more comfortable with elisp, you will likely be surprised how
often you crank out a simple rough emacs function to automate some task
your doing - even just one-offs that were maybe a little too complicated
for just a macro. However, just one warning. It can become addictive. f
your not careful, you may find yourself spending too many hours hacking
out bits of elisp or re-inventing features which already exist. Not
really a problem unless it starts cuasing negative impact on the rest of
your life!

have fun

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au