Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs

[Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk>]

akaiser@visi.com wrote:

> 
> Readily usable documentation would include complete reference
> information for every function, variable, and macro bundled with emacs
> at every release.  

It generally does have every function/variable that the developers want the users to know about.  (The omitted features are probably too hairy, or perhaps experimental.)

The authors of various contributed packages often don't write documentation.  I think they should, but that is how the world works.  Since all of this free software, we can't make too many demands on the contributors.  But, in reality, even such contributors generally put helpful usage info at the top of the elisp files.

> It would provide some way better than string search
> to look for related concepts.  And it would be generously illustrated.

"related concepts"?  I am not sure what you mean.  The info manual does have plenty of cross-references, which are presumably for related concepts.  

The info manual is generally meant to be read linearly, one chapter at a time.  You skip over the details on first reading, and come back to them if and when you need them.  If you try to read the manual one function at a time, I am sure you will get nowhere.

Cheers,
Uday