From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: JohnF Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: beginner questions Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:46:58 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Message-ID: References: <87eh8d2qxi.fsf@informatimago.com> <87siwt12nd.fsf@informatimago.com> <87fvspyndr.fsf@informatimago.com> <87pprryc5h.fsf@informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1380531013 26527 80.91.229.3 (30 Sep 2013 08:50:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:50:13 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 30 10:50:18 2013 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 1VQZBK-0008Gx-Ew for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 10:50:18 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47509 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VQZBJ-0003fJ-Kz for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 30 Sep 2013 04:50:17 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!news-out.readnews.com!transit4.readnews.com!panix!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 61 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com Original-X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1380530818 29732 166.84.1.3 (30 Sep 2013 08:46:58 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:46:58 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: tin/2.0.0-20110823 ("Ardenistiel") (UNIX) (NetBSD/5.1.2 (i386)) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:201487 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:93756 Archived-At: Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: > JohnF writes: > >>> You should also set auto-mode-alist >>> (setq auto-mode-alist '(("." . fundamental-mode))) >> Yup, that solved the problem. >> Now I'll have to find a quick-and-dirty elisp tutorial > (info "(elisp) Comment Tips") Thanks, Pascal. I'd totally forgotten about info, and info elisp from the shell also works great. > An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/ I'm getting "page not found" for that one (and a couple of variations I tried). Backing up a notch, http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ has a general "Lisp Language" link to wikipedia (which also has an emacs lisp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs_lisp page that doesn't quite seem quick-and-dirty-tutorial-like). > or > M-: (info "(eintr)Top") RET > (for non-programmers) That seems good, too. A little different than the shell info elisp, but I haven't looked through either one carefully yet. > Emacs Lisp Manual > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/elisp.html Yeah, a little too wordy for my quick-and-dirty definition which, to me anyway, starts with a "hello, world" example. That is, it assumes the reader has enough overall programming experience so that if he's shown a small example, he'll intuitively see a lot of the semantics behind the syntax. And he'll intuit a good deal of syntax, too. For example, just your M-: (info "(eintr)Top") RET above was very informative. I wasn't aware of M-: , but as soon as it said Eval:, and I took another look at your (expression), I got the point. Now, I obviously don't get everything, or even all that much, so a good quick-and-dirty tutorial might well add some discussion after that example. But at least I'll start with a good sense of what we're talking about and where we're going. And if it's not what I'm currently interested in, I can immediately move on to another example and discussion. But most of these tutorials start out with thousands of words about elementary syntactic stuff that's indeed crucial, but can often be kind of telegraphed with a few well-chosen examples. You sure won't rigorously learn all the syntax immediately, but you'll immediately get a pretty good idea of how to do simple things. And the interpreter/compiler (or assembler:) will gleefully let you know when you've messed up syntactically. > or > M-: (info "(elisp)Top") RET Right, this one looks exactly like the shell info elisp. Thanks again, -- John Forkosh ( mailto: j@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )