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Comment by nic-ferrier | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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