CODEWITHSUNDEEP
emacselisp
Gordon Guthrie
Gordon Guthrie

Reputation: 6274

What Are The Most Important Parts Of ELisp To Learn If You Want To Programme Emacs?

I use Emacs everyday as it is the standard editor for Erlang.

I decided as my New Years Resolution to learn to programme eLisp. I decided that writing a book about eLisp was the best way to learn.

I have make pretty good progress: Learn eLisp For Emacs

The strategic structure of the book is

I have got through the basics (ie the first of these 4 points), covering:

If you are writing a book about a programming language you usually start by knowing the language well - well I don't - so my major problem now is a completeness problem:

So I thought I would address these by asking the community here. My question is What Is Missing From My Table Of Contents? (in particular what should the more advanced eLisp Section contain).

Upvotes: 18

Views: 1370

Answers (4)

Drew
Drew

Reputation: 30708

"I have read both the GNU manuals - but they are not so much use if you don't know Lisp/elisp."

Tip: Emacs is not much use if you don't know Lisp.

Not really true, of course, but you get the idea. This one is really true:

Tip: Emacs is much, much, much, much more useful if you know Lisp. Not to mention more fun.

Wrt what to learn:

  1. symbols (they are simple objects, with properties -- not just identifiers)

  2. lists -- cons cells, list structure (including modification/sharing)

  3. evaluation

  4. function application

  5. regexps

  6. text/overlay/string properties (values can be any Lisp entities)

  7. buffers and windows

Upvotes: 4

Rörd
Rörd

Reputation: 6681

I'd suggest you'll take a look what the two Info manuals included with Emacs Emacs Lisp Intro "An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp" and Elisp "The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual" already have to offer and then decide what you would like to add to or do differently than those.

Upvotes: 2

Trey Jackson
Trey Jackson

Reputation: 74480

Now that's an interesting way to learn a language...

I think you've probably skipped a bunch of the fundamentals in the getting started/basics section. If you've not already read it, I recommend reading "An Introduction To Programming In Emacs Lisp" (at gnu.org), which covers what I'd expect to see in the "basics" portion. I won't bother cut/paste the table of contents.

As far as knowing when you've written a complete book... Well, once you've re-written the Emacs Lisp manual in "how to" form, you know you're done. Alternatively, if you've written a book that can be used to answer/interpret all of the elisp and emacs questions, then you've probably got decent coverage.

What advanced features could you write about? There's advice, process communication, non-ASCII text, syntax tables, abbrevs, text properties, byte compilation, display tables, images, and a bunch more in the manual.

Note: The proper capitalization of elisp is either all lowercase, or possibly an uppercase E. The GNU documentation doesn't use "elisp" very much at all (mostly as a directory name, all lowercase), it prefers "Emacs Lisp."

Note: In the current version of your book, you treat global variables negatively. It's probably worth reading the RMS paper to gain some insight into the design decisions made, specifically on global variables as well as dynamic binding (the latter which you've yet to cover, which is a key (basic) concept which you've already gotten wrong in your book).

Upvotes: 14

Dingo
Dingo

Reputation: 3395

Instead of asking the community here, why not use what the community already offers? Review all the questions tagged "elisp" and see where they fit it your book. A survey of what people actually want to understand could be some of the best information you will get.

Upvotes: 4

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