From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: rusi Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Issues with emacs Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 23:39:33 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <87bokbb4zw.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1340520019 19214 80.91.229.3 (24 Jun 2012 06:40:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2012 06:40:19 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jun 24 08:40:18 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SigUb-00078p-Dz for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 24 Jun 2012 08:40:17 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40001 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SigUb-0000Gz-ER for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 24 Jun 2012 02:40:17 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!km7g2000pbc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 28 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 116.74.129.150 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1340519974 30503 127.0.0.1 (24 Jun 2012 06:39:34 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2012 06:39:34 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: km7g2000pbc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=116.74.129.150; posting-account=mBpa7woAAAAGLEWUUKpmbxm-Quu5D8ui User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0.1,gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:193012 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:85407 Archived-At: On Jun 24, 7:39=A0am, ken wrote: > 5. Make the elisp documentation and tutorials so easy and fun to learn > that tons of people actually want to write code. When I first started reading the emacs/elisp docs around 93 I found them a model of clarity. Has that changed much? I dont think so Whats changed? The fact that we are in 2012. In those days it was completely natural to expect that somebody who used a computer read a manual Today thats a strange requirement to say the least. Would a modern kid using a new phone/car expect to read a manual? The fact is they dont (whereas oldies like me struggle to find them :-) ) And so you give them emacs along with a manual and they look at you funny. By chance they look inside and they find: - there's a key called Meta? Whazzat? - C-p and C-n do up and down? Really?! (and whatever is C- ?) - And when you tell them arrow keys work just fine they are ready with a lock and key to put you away somewhere tl;dr version: Saying that emacs manuals are not fun and easy to learn is wrong. Its just that reading them feels like 1980