From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Uday S Reddy Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Failing to see the allure of Emacs Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:31:09 +0000 Organization: Janet Usenet Reading Service. Message-ID: References: <877hp5e2op.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <87pr2u7ie3.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <9uudnY0F7J_qFjfWnZ2dnUVZ8oCdnZ2d@posted.visi> <87mxxweqr6.fsf@rapttech.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1273057253 31288 80.91.229.12 (5 May 2010 11:00:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 11:00:53 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed May 05 13:00:48 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 1O9cLP-0006fX-NM for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 05 May 2010 13:00:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:43859 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1O9cLP-0004EA-8O for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 05 May 2010 07:00:47 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!multikabel.net!newsfeed20.multikabel.net!dedekind.zen.co.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!feed4.jnfs.ja.net!jnfs.ja.net!times.reader.netnews.ja.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 18 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: acws-0068.cs.bham.ac.uk Original-X-Trace: north.jnrs.ja.net 1269541845 15456 147.188.194.56 (25 Mar 2010 18:30:45 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@north.jnrs.ja.net Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:30:45 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) In-Reply-To: Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:177575 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 04 May 2010 16:48:55 -0400 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:73372 Archived-At: akaiser@visi.com wrote: > Dear friends, no one is immune from criticism, but I've noted with > amusement how the discussion is wandering astray with misreading and > misunderstanding. Did I say "that emacs lacked documentation"? No. > Has "no one suggested that you read the source code"? Someone did. Are > the important manuals all up to date? Obviously not. Is the > documentation complete? Clearly, no. Is there lots of useful stuff > there? Sure. Is it readily usable? For some people, for some purposes. I think everybody jumped up and started objecting, not because they weren't open to criticism, but because what you have been saying is completely contrary to our own experience. I personally think Emacs documentation is one of the best there is. It is clear and concise, well-explained, and quite complete. Ok, it takes some effort to read it. But if you do read it -- linearly as I mentioned before -- you are well-rewarded. By the way, I didn't say that you should read the "source code". I said that people that contribute software often put their documentation at the top of their source code files as *comments*, instead of writing separate info documentation. But, when such contributed software is accepted into Gnu Emacs, Gnu people often add the documentation in the info. An example is the longlines package, which I started using several years ago. I was glad to see that it got included in the Gnu Emacs release and equally glad to see that it got its own section in the info manual. Despite your claimed expertise with Emacs, I must say that your comments are quite off the mark. Cheers, Uday