Comment by eyko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eyko | Hacker News Reader

I like the approach (two birds with one stone) but the first bitecast has left me the impression that I've learnt some emacs lisp and very little emacs. Since total newbies are supposed to be the audience of this first bitecast, I'll give my opinion as a total newbie...

From the video, here are the features of emacs that I've learnt by just watching:

1. Emacs will read your environment variables. You can override them as you'd expect.

2. You can override your HOME directory by setting the environment variable to any path. From my point of view, it seems like too much work - will emacs use your current working directory? Seems like it doesn't.

3. C-x C-e evaluates.

Here's what I would have liked to learn, that I didn't:

1. What shortcuts is the author using throughout the video?

2. Basic emacs functionality: moving around, opening / closing files, saving files... Granted I know some movement shortcuts because they're commonly used in other contexts (C-a / C-e for begin/end of line, C-f, C-b to move cursor forward/back, etc), there are many other tips we could use as newbies.

3. Does emacs only evaluate lisp? Will it evaluate Python? Javascript?

4. Although I know I can extend functionality, I'd love to learn about the ecosystem (plugins or modules, what tools, if any, exist for plugin management, etc).

Showing around shortcuts is missing the point about Emacs. As the great Heraclitus once said: "No man ever uses the same Emacs". Emacs is about tailoring your tool to yourself. To use emacs Effectively you only need to know about Emacs core abstractions (buffers, strings, modes, keymaps, etc), emacs lisp and at most the C-h commands.

I'm clearly doing a bad UX job with this somehow. There are a collection of little videos wrapped by web pages documenting what is in the video. Eventually they will add up to something substantial (hopefully) and comprehensive (hopefully).

I toyed with the idea of using something that would show you the keys... but those things are never totally reliable and always a bit of added complexity. So I decided instead to offer the web page approach.

I admit, I'm probably not doing a great job for complete Emacs newbies right now. I am unclear if I have to, there are a lot of starting Emacs screencasts around. This one is about starting with EmacsLisp, not really Emacs.

Having said that... if that's what people want I may go back and alter the structure of the thing so that total newbies could join in.

It would probably only mean having fewer expectations in the crash course.

I think you should identify a target audience. e.g. Emacs users who don't know elisp. The the questions which were posed become non existent. Keystrokes, editing etc. are best taught separately.

Regarding target audience, I think if the screencasts were "emacs for beginners and elisp for beginners" it would be too much and there would be no real audience: people who are starting out in emacs don't need to bother about elisp yet, people who are starting out in elisp probably know at least the basics, if not more, of emacs.

So either do emacs for beginners (of which there are already quite a few screencasts) or do elisp for intermediate emacs users but those new to elisp

Disclaimer: I am being amazingly selfish here as I've been using emacs for quite a while, but only now getting into elisp (and lisp in general)

I've just watched all 3 screencasts and found them really very useful. Not just the elisp stuff, which is great, but also the modes that help you use elisp (smartparens etc).

I would happily pay/gittip for a series that aimed at programmers who already use emacs (or can figure out the editing/movement functions) that takes you from no elisp to being able to write your own (useful) packages. Tips for getting the most out of emacs for the development of lisp would be a huge plus (for example, an episode on setting up/using smartparens, eldocs or whatever).

you're in luck! that's absolutely what I'm trying to do.

I do have secondary audience, people who want to learn Lisp, not necessarily elisp. Emacs is the best way to do that imo.

I expect those people to have at least looked a bit at Emacs before they start though.

This sounds spot on for what I'm after. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Thanks for the link to the other vids, will check them out.

wait. there are more than 3!

http://www.emacsbites.com/series/done-so-far

2. There's a built-in tutorial like Vimtutor for this, it's under the help menu.

3. Looks like you can use Python[1], but you'd better just bite the bullet and learn a bit of Emacs Lisp, it's how you'll be configuring it anyway, and it's unlikely that you'll need to program something too complex if you can just fetch a bunch of Elisp from the net which does sort of what you want.

4. Yes, from Emacs 24 and on it has a built-in package manager and repositories.

You know what a good way to learn Emacs is? Reading the docs. No, really! Anytime you request documentation for your buffer (C-h m by default), it will be based on your current key bindings and modes, so it's a great starting point to explore, as it'll tell you of all the shortcuts your active plugins have defined.

As of late, I've learned more of the capabilities of the modes I use by dicking around than by searching the web or reading manuals, as I sometimes just start typing in the extended command shell (M-x), using IDO mode's[2] fuzzy completion, and seeing what comes up. For instance, by typing "replace", I just learned of query-replace, which prompts you before each substitution for a string. Afterwards, I can run "M-x where-is" to see if the command is bound to any shortcut right now, as I did with query-replace, which turned out to be bound to M-%.

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1. http://pymacs.progiciels-bpi.ca/index.html

2. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/InteractivelyDoThings

M-x apropos was also a hugely important part of the learning process for me.

The built-in tutorial (C-h t) was extremely useful for me in learning emacs.

First, it's just a document that you can edit. You start at the very beginning by navigating the document itself. You can save or discard your changes to it.

Second, it's marked up to show you when the key bindings it's talking about have been re-bound. This wouldn't be an issue for a "vanilla" emacs, but is useful with preconfigured packages.

By the time you get through the tutorial, the basics are second-nature.

More power to the videos -- just agreeing that the built-in docs are ample.

Maybe this goes against the point of the video, but I really don't think beginner emacs users should be learning any lisp. As you're saying you should know the basic keys to do basic things, you should know fundamental concepts (point, mark, kill ring, etc), and you should know how to use the help system.

Then when you can use emacs as an EDITOR, you can worry about learning the lisp. Don't get me wrong, the lisp is awesome, but is there really a need to make the learning curve any steeper?

There are lots of videos showing you how to use Emacs. Emacs Bites is about teaching you Lisp.

For videos that focus more on emacs itself check out this chap's youtube videos. He also has a decent haskell collection too.

you forgot the link:

https://www.youtube.com/user/jekor?feature=watch

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