[rescue] getting started with emacs

[Steve Sandau]

So, after this editor discussion (that I believe I have seen in a few
other incarnations), I've become interested in emacs again. I have
always (as in for 20+ years) used "vi" because regardless of the OS in
question (HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, Linux of any flavor, and whatever
else), it was the one common editor. It was worth learning (odd as it
may be) because of its omnipresence. I've gotten used to it enough that
it will do what I want.

But now I have a little more time to look at new things, and I am
interested again in emacs. Is there a better way to get started that
just to install it an read the man page? Just now I installed it on a
Slackware 14 server to try it out.

Suggestions?

This is *not* meant to reignite the debate; I just want to play around
with emacs, if that is even possible. ;-)

Steve
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[Jonathan Patschke]

Post by Steve Sandau
But now I have a little more time to look at new things, and I am
interested again in emacs. Is there a better way to get started that
just to install it an read the man page? Just now I installed it on a
Slackware 14 server to try it out.

The manual page is pretty useless as a runtime document.

Emacs has a built-in tutorial. To get to it, start Emacs and try Ctrl-h
followed by t to start the tutorial.

If you get frustrated, you can exit Emacs with Ctrl-x followed by c.

[Carl R. Friend]

Post by Jonathan Patschke
The manual page is pretty useless as a runtime document.

Most are fairly useless in the "heat of the moment" to be quite
honest, and there are times I've gotten so frustrated when shoved
into an emacs environment (e.g. when the $EDITOR variable gets
ignored) that I've been known to log into another session and "nine"
the emacs process just to get me out of it.

Post by Jonathan Patschke
Emacs has a built-in tutorial.B To get to it, start Emacs and try Ctrl-h
followed by t to start the tutorial.

This is likely to be a decent starting point, but I'd also recommend
finding any one of the various keystroke "cheat sheets" available on
the web, printing it out, and having it handy if you're likely to get
thrust into the situation above.

Obviously, emacs (Escape Meta Alt Control Something) is not my
favourite editor, but I also came up in the AT&T UNIX world not in
the BSD one. (Two things have come out of Berkeley. BSD and LSD.
This is not a coincidence.) But, I still have to deal with it from
time to time -- which I do, just grudgingly.

I would prefer TECO to emacs any day of the week -- and one can
run TECO perfectly credibly on a DECwriter or an ASR-33.

Post by Jonathan Patschke
If you get frustrated, you can exit Emacs with Ctrl-x followed by c.

Or, if you're really infuriated, the method above. (Of note here,
is that to folks who are used to systems from the '60s, the control
key was primarily used to alter the state of a program (e.g. stop,
abort, dump core, or query status) NOT to serve as a command header.
This is what I find most confusing about emacs. A control-c to
me means to some operating systems to dump the core for a process and
abort it. Control-a simply aborted it. Control-t allowed you to
find out what its memory, PC, and I/O usage was at any point.

All in all, I'm reminded of the quite hilarious, if rather obscure
to non-tech readers, cartoon of a young lad and his father with the
son asking, "Why do we have to hide from the police, daddy?", to
which the father replies, "Because we use vi, son; they use emacs."
The joy in this is that the ordering doesn't matter; it's just as
funny one way as it is the other.

In short, yet one more "holy war".

Cheers.

[Jonathan Patschke]

Post by Jonathan Patschke
If you get frustrated, you can exit Emacs with Ctrl-x followed by c.

NNNG.

I've gotten so in the habit of holding Ctrl during that chord that I
forgot 'tis actually Ctrl-x Ctrl-c.

[Nemo]

Post by Steve Sandau
But now I have a little more time to look at new things, and I am
interested again in emacs. Is there a better way to get started that
just to install it an read the man page? Just now I installed it on a
Slackware 14 server to try it out.
Suggestions?

This one seems to highly rated: http://www.harley.com/emacs/

I normally do not suggest anything that I have not read but this one
seems different. (I have Stallman's book bur never read it. I also
bought an O'Reilly book but never read it. Life just got in the way.
With me, there is always the point reached when I decide to build a
tool to save future hassle. Unfortunately, I have a high tolerance
for hassle.)

N.

Post by Steve Sandau
This is *not* meant to reignite the debate; I just want to play around
with emacs, if that is even possible. ;-)
Steve
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[Andrew M. Hoerter]

Post by Steve Sandau
But now I have a little more time to look at new things, and I am
interested again in emacs. Is there a better way to get started that
just to install it an read the man page? Just now I installed it on a
Slackware 14 server to try it out.

The manpage is more of a quick reference for invoking emacs from the
shell than actually using it.

The FSF puts out an official manual as well as a reference card for
the standard keybindings. The manual is available on the web, in
print, and as an Info document (Info is the often-maligned
hypertextish GNU documentation system). For beginners, I think it's
serviceable, but maybe better used as a reference.

There's an O'Reilly Emacs book which I've lightly skimmed from time to
time. It seems like a reasonable place to start, written in a
somewhat more approachable style.

There are also many Emacs screencasts on Youtube these days, if you
prefer that kind of thing. Seeing a demo is good for whetting your
appetite with cool features or tricks that might inspire you to learn
how it's done.

Don't be dismayed if it seems like there's too much to learn all at
once. Eventually you'll get the idea of how things hang together, and
Emacs makes it easy to access documentation for a given
variable/function/key when you get stuck.
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