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Comment by molteanu | Hacker News Reader

I haven't read this, but from the contents it seems like you can learn everything there is in the book from the official Emacs GNU documentation:

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/in...

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Wow, what a really mean-spirited comment, and it's the top one (at the time of writing.) -- did you consider what you said here before writing it? Let me propose a rewrite:-

'If you can't afford to buy this, the official emacs GNU documentation is great - [link]'

Instead you first admit you haven't read it, then imply, but in somewhat weasel words, that it doesn't offer anything beyond what the official documentation offers.

I'm a long-term emacs user and I can tell you that while the official docs cover a lot, they provide more of a reference than a guide, so a book like this is really worthwhile.

Keep in mind the author would have dedicated enormous amounts of time and effort to writing this, and technical book writing is very rarely a profitable enterprise.

I think we need a bit more kindness towards people's work (as well as _constructive_ criticism of course) - how do you think the author might feel reading this on such a prominent tech website? Imagine it was something you worked on for hundreds of hours, dismissed in the top comment, how would you feel? We're all humans, and empathy is already lacking enough in our industry, so think a little before posting next time.

Actually, good technical writing is among the most reliably lucrative genre of writing.

That might not be saying much, but how many people make money writing poetry or genre fiction?

Ha that's a good point ;) but once you factor in opportunity cost for developers, especially ones experienced enough to write a book, it's definitely not a great choice (likely negative.)

While RTFM is technically a correct answer to any Emacs question, the reason for purchasing a secondary resource is that the author has presumably curated the documentation for a particular audience.

I agree that Emacs documentation is very good, and once I recently got in the habit of C-h'ing for answers rather than Google'ing I became more productive and can work more productively with the WiFi on my laptop off [not having the temptation of HN among the productivity enhancements]. But this doesn't change the fact that better explanations are possible and that a teacher is often better than a specification. Experts can contextualize a problem, and that has added value.

Although I haven't read this book, I read its ToC. Apparently it seeks to introduce you to the Emacs way of doing things. And guess what? Near the end, it emphasizes how to use Emacs' self-documention: https://www.masteringemacs.org/book/look-inside/table-of-con...

I'm embarrassed to say how long I used Emacs knowing about C-h f -- but not noticing and using C-h i to read the full documentation from inside Emacs. I wish I'd appreciated that from the start.

At this point I've read the full Info doc at least once through, some sections multiple times. It's impressively good, especially for getting a crisper understanding of topics you only sort of understand. It's one of Emacs best features.

But I can totally see the value of a good introduction book, and wish I'd had one when I was starting out. So although I don't know how good this book is, I don't think a book is pointless.

As a long time Emacs user, I would recommend using the real documentation too. Learn how to use the built in info and help, and study some of the elisp.

The author discussed this on reddit the other day. Supposedly the guide helps you get into that workflow.

http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/36zcny/im_pleased_to_...

I don't know if buying a book is worth it compared to the manual/documentation. But nonetheless, Emacs is a very self-documented program.

http://emacswiki.org/emacs/SelfDocumentation

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