From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Riley Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Do we need a "Stevens" book? Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:48:20 +0200 Organization: aich tea tea pea dicky riley dot net Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1280339347 15390 80.91.229.12 (28 Jul 2010 17:49:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:49:07 +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 Jul 28 19:49:06 2010 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 1OeAkb-0006K8-Bj for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:49:05 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:42382 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OeAka-0005iG-DH for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:49:04 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=47337 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OeAk9-0005gl-FR for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:48:38 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OeAk6-0001X6-7z for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:48:37 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:51371) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OeAk5-0001Wp-Uq for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:48:34 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OeAk3-00066E-C7 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:48:31 +0200 Original-Received: from 85.183.18.158 ([85.183.18.158]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:48:31 +0200 Original-Received: from rileyrg by 85.183.18.158 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:48:31 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 44 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 85.183.18.158 User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) 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:74327 Archived-At: Olwe Melwasul writes: > I've not gotten very far with this idea; no one seems interested, but > I'll try it here anyway... > > It seems to me that Emacs needs a W. Richard Stevens-style book. As > you may know, Stevens wrote the "Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) > Environment" textbook that many of us used in college. Or maybe Emacs > needs something along the lines of the many "Linux gnarly/wooly > internals" books. Anyway, I would love to see a book that got into the > nitty-gritty of Emacs/elisp -- just like you see discussed here every > day on the help-gnu-emacs list. > > Here's an example: comint. How do you effectively use comint? When > should you use comint? Okay, I can Google around and find one-off blog > discussions here and there about comint; I can read them all; I can > get confused; I can kludge something together ... and then find out > later that what I've done (as well as bloggers A, B, and C) is really > not "best practice" use of comint, i.e., that how I've used comint is > overkill or could have been done much simpler with .el. > Wouldn't it be nice to have one go-to source/book that thrashed out > comint usage once and for all? > > Just skimming through all the elisp material (books, Internet, etc.), > it seems like a hodge-podge on a continuum between gems and junk just > waiting for a clear-speaking Richard Stevens to whip it all into > shape. Sure, the "official" texts will get you pretty far, but no way > are you ready to be a "best-practices" guru. The printed books seem > more like a "cookbook" than a real Stevens-style book. Maybe I'm all > wrong, but I think I like what the Racket/PLT people are doing. They > seem to be whipping the Scheme hodge-podge into a decent > best-practices, best-tools order. > > Personally I've been admiring Emacs from afar for quite some time. I'm > really an Emacs/elisp newbie, but I've got a writing/technical writing > background. If what I'm saying strikes a chord, maybe I could be a > receiver/collector of a "best-practices-slash-wooly internals" sorta > book project. It would be a free/GNU sorta thing of course ... and > please don't say "I don't think there'd be enough interest in it." > > Olwe I believe Sacha Chua is/was writing something along those lines.