emacs-devel
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

RE: (emacs) Intro [was: Making Emacs popular again with a video]


From: excalamus
Subject: RE: (emacs) Intro [was: Making Emacs popular again with a video]
Date: Thu, 28 May 2020 03:21:34 +0200 (CEST)

Updated the proposed intro based on everyone's excellent feedback!

> (nil)Top
>
> Welcome to the Exciting World of GNU Emacs!
> *******************************************
>
> GNU Emacs is born of two ideas, the GNU project and Emacs editors.  The
> goal of the GNU project is to provide a complete, free software system.
> This means GNU Emacs respects you. It can adapt to how you work, not the
> other way around![1] An "Emacs" is a command oriented text editor
> designed for introspection and extensibility.  These qualities enable
> far more than basic word processing, as this manual describes.
>
> "Introspection" means GNU Emacs has self-knowledge.  Every aspect of the
> system is documented and accessible.  Each level of inquiry has
> tutorials, guides, and references.  It can answer questions like, "What
> commands might help me?", "What does this do?", and, "How does this
> work?"  The documentation extends from general concepts to the source
> code itself!  GNU Emacs has everything conveniently in-house, at your
> fingertips.  See Help.
>
> "Extensibility" means that you can alter GNU Emacs itself.  You can
> customize the environment, from keyboard shortcuts to color themes, and
> most everything in-between.  See Customization.  Moreover, you can
> create and apply new commands in real-time. These can be packaged and
> shared with the diverse Emacs community.  Most of GNU Emacs is written
> in Lisp.  See Emacs Lisp Intro(eintr) if you want to learn how to extend
> GNU Emacs.
>
> Authors and researchers, as well as programmers, use GNU Emacs.  It has
> seen active development for more than 40 years and includes innumerable
> features; it is a heritage as much as a tool.  We love GNU Emacs because
> we find its editing environment a rewarding experience like no other.
> We hope you'll feel that way, too.
>
>    ---------- Footnotes ----------
>
>    [1] GNU is a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix.  The 'G' in GNU
>    is not silent.  To learn more about the GNU project and how it can
>    benefit you, see Philosophy (<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/>)

I like this revision, though I have two reservations:

First, I think it oversells the accessibility of the documentation.
The Emacs documentation is extensive and well written.  However, I
find it quite difficult to navigate to a concept if that thing isn't a
function or variable.  I have been a beginner and asked myself, "What
is a cons cell?".  I found then, as I often still do, that leaving
Emacs (to use a web browser) yields results fast enough to not use
Emacs itself.  Ironically, I most often wind up at the gnu.org html
documentation.

Second, the menu description is "Intro::An introduction to Emacs
concepts" which is no longer true in this version.  I have updated it
to be an intro to *GNU* Emacs, which includes reference to the GNU
project.  I consider being a component of the GNU system a feature and
something integral to distinguishing GNU Emacs from other Emacsen.  It
feels right to talk about it in the manual introduction.  However,
this implies structural, if not intention, changes to the overall
manual.  I feel those are over my head at this point.  There are less
dramatic doc tasks to assist with.

Thoughts?



reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]