From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "akaiser@visi.com" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:00:03 +0100 Message-ID: <9uudnY0F7J_qFjfWnZ2dnUVZ8oCdnZ2d@posted.visi> References: <877hp5e2op.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87pr2u7ie3.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> Reply-To: djc@resiak.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1272998473 8506 80.91.229.12 (4 May 2010 18:41:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 18:41:13 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue May 04 20:41:11 2010 connect(): No such file or directory 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 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1O9N3L-0004AP-68 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 May 2010 20:41:07 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:37528 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1O9N3K-00017Q-Gg for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 May 2010 14:41:06 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!news2.glorb.com!news.glorb.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.posted.visi!news.posted.visi.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:00:23 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100227 Thunderbird/3.0.3 Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: <87pr2u7ie3.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> Original-Lines: 36 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.221.201.1 Original-X-Trace: sv3-J1MpXY5buLURU1FmKmC824+wrqfM9SJLhmftLPUX8Sh+nGSd4GHqObJWvEob1HChhI4SmFjAKMUYe2O!tMwjISzFEtsOnmvlAopN3EBKba/UPLU7sNGGWbCptlXD3yyjVQTg0BKkXhPFmO+z+gZXjiCWUEqG!EkOkai1v5A== Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:177561 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:73049 Archived-At: 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