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Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ukma!uflorida!novavax!weiner
From: weiner@novavax.UUCP (Bob Weiner)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,gnu.emacs
Subject: Re: Book(s) on Emacs?
Message-ID: <1348@novavax.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jun 89 01:38:56 GMT
References: <1570@ora.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Motorola, Inc.
Lines: 66
In-reply-to: peter@ora.UUCP's message of 14 Jun 89 10:18:37 GMT

In article <1570@ora.UUCP> peter@ora.UUCP (Peter Mui) writes:

   We're considering writing a Nutshell Handbook on Emacs (sort of like our
   Learning the vi Editor book, for those of you who have seen it.)  

I was one of the ones who wrote to you saying that I thought you should
write such a handbook and I stand by that position.  As you know, many
people now use some version of emacs on their UNIX, VMS, DOS, and
sometimes even MacOS computers.

Most people use vi simply because it almost always available on UNIX
systems.  In my experience, after proper exposure to the capabilities
and logical user interface of emacs, most people convert.  Thus, one
factor to keep in mind is that emacs users may be more sophisticated in
their usage of an editor and so may want more detailed information.

Your organization seems to be able to provide good, concise technical
information on UNIX subjects.  You also have a broader distribution
channel than most others who have written manuals on emacs, so I think
much of the rapidly expanding UNIX user base would benefit from such a
handbook.

In the case of GNU Emacs, the manual is extremely well written and
provides most of the information that users need, but many users need a
much shorter distallation of this material.


   Here are some questions I have:

   1) What would you like to see in such a book?

Good summary charts of:  standard key bindings for different emacs
versions (using GNU Emacs as a standard of reference since RMS is the
one to set the standard), subsystems available and their usage, uses of
keyboard macros, uses of regular expressions and keyboard macros.

   2) What do you see as the most difficult part(s) of learning emacs?

Learning to type the key sequence that starts the tutorial.  Come on
guys.  Emacs is the only editor I've ever found that comes with an
excellent interactive tutorial; of course, this only covers the basics.
People may say it is hard to learn when they mean that there is so much
there that they find it difficult to learn it all.  Your job is to
convince them that they can be competent emacs users by learning it as
one does any other large system, piece by piece.

   3) Which implementation of emacs should be covered in the book, and why?  
      Do you think one book could cover several of the most popular versions?

Yes, cover several versions since the similarities are often very large.
As I said, GNU Emacs should provide the reference.  It has a large user
base and is destined to continue evolving rapidly to meet people's
changing computer use patterns.

   4) Should we even bother?  Are the books and manuals out there already
      sufficient?  What's the best one you've seen so far?

Yes.  The GNU Emacs manual is the best written, but again, it is not a
quick read by any means and it does presume some basic programming
knowledge in a number of sections.  I truly believe executives should be
able to use emacs if they often work at a computer.  Write a handbook
which makes emacs accessible to them in chapters 1-4 and gives the rest
of the community the deeper knowledge it needs in chapters 5-8.
-- 
Bob Weiner, Motorola, Inc.,   USENET:  ...!gatech!uflorida!novavax!weiner
(407) 738-2087