From: "akaiser@visi.com" <akaiser@visi.com>
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:00:03 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <9uudnY0F7J_qFjfWnZ2dnUVZ8oCdnZ2d@posted.visi> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87pr2u7ie3.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>
I understand all the objections made to my saying that the emacs
documentation is incomplete, not up to date, and not readily usable, and I
don't feel like arguing the matter merely in technical detail. Some
disagree. That's cool. I wish them well.
I have a relative who, before email, never wrote me. Once she had email,
she became a very lively correspondent. Paper wasn't her medium, but email
was.
Got the idea?
I can read source code and I do; but there's a lot of source code, and most
of it is unrewarding reading. I can use info, but I don't like it. Please
don't tell me "use info", because info is designed and intended not for
reading, but for brief, casual online reference, and that is its cognitive
organization. It's poor as a learning tool, at least for text-based and
example-based learners like me. I'm a fast reader and I like hectares of
well-indexed text with lots of bookmarks: that's my best medium.
If documentation is worth doing -- and I think it is -- then it's worth
doing well, in a way that meets the needs of the people who'll actually use
it. In that light, emacs documentation seems to me to hold up not too well.
Look through this newsgroup for all the places a response has said "Have
you tried function such-and-such", or "that behavior is controlled by
variable X except that the default is variable Y". If the documentation
were better, much of that would disappear.
When a literate, conscientious user with decades of programming experience,
decades of experience writing documentation, decades of using emacs, and
decades of support for free software says something like what I say, trying
to argue him down is unproductive. Of course I appreciate all the concrete
help I've gotten here and in other such forums, but it sure would be good
to have complete, up to date, readily usable documentation. (Smiling.)
djc
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2010-03-24 22:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 55+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2010-03-21 19:02 Failing to see the allure of Emacs Daniel
2010-03-21 20:22 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-21 20:47 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-21 21:00 ` akaiser
2010-03-21 21:26 ` Daniel
2010-03-21 22:16 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-22 4:05 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-03-21 22:21 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-23 17:22 ` akaiser
2010-03-23 17:52 ` Jeff Clough
2010-03-23 19:10 ` akaiser
2010-03-23 19:32 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-03-23 23:00 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-24 21:40 ` Tim X
2010-03-24 22:00 ` akaiser [this message]
2010-03-25 0:28 ` Jason Rumney
2010-03-25 1:03 ` Jay Belanger
2010-03-25 1:27 ` despen
2010-03-25 8:42 ` Tim X
2010-03-25 9:19 ` akaiser
2010-03-25 10:01 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-25 10:09 ` akaiser
2010-03-27 20:59 ` Giorgos Keramidas
2010-04-07 5:36 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-25 9:41 ` akaiser
2010-03-25 12:17 ` Tim Landscheidt
2010-03-25 12:24 ` akaiser
2010-05-04 19:03 ` Lennart Borgman
[not found] ` <mailman.28.1272999835.29092.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2010-05-05 7:15 ` David Kastrup
2010-05-05 20:40 ` Stefan Monnier
2010-03-25 12:45 ` Jay Belanger
2010-03-25 18:31 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-03-25 14:07 ` Ted Zlatanov
2010-03-25 14:49 ` David Kastrup
2010-03-26 4:14 ` Galen Boyer
2010-05-05 17:27 ` Joel J. Adamson
2010-03-21 21:02 ` Jeff Clough
2010-03-21 22:09 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-21 22:35 ` B. T. Raven
2010-03-21 22:45 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2010-03-22 0:21 ` Jeff Clough
2010-03-22 4:45 ` B. T. Raven
2010-05-22 2:38 ` Joseph Brenner
2010-03-21 22:58 ` John Bokma
2010-04-20 13:04 ` Jim Diamond
2010-04-20 17:15 ` Andreas Politz
2010-04-20 17:34 ` Jeff Clough
2010-04-21 14:26 ` Jim Diamond
2010-04-20 17:36 ` Glenn Morris
2010-04-21 14:31 ` Jim Diamond
2010-04-21 18:23 ` Stefan Monnier
2010-04-22 15:27 ` Uday S Reddy
2010-04-20 22:37 ` Tim X
2010-03-21 22:41 ` despen
2010-03-22 11:59 ` Stefan Kamphausen
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