On Thu 28 Mar 2019 at 08:30:47 (+0000), Gian Uberto Lauri wrote: > >>>>> "JH" == John Hasler <jhas...@newsguy.com> writes: > > JH> deloptes writes: > >> learning emacs means learning lisp > > JH> Not true. > > In my experience is true. But needs some more words. > > When you intensively start using Emacs, and you start asking to the > editor "Oh, True One Editor, what is the meaning of this keystroke?" > (😊) and see the answer, when you take a look to the .emacs of a more > experienced user, you see, sooner or later you understand that there > is a way to tell Emacs how "to do useful things"[*]. And since these > things are useful to you, you learn to do them. Even if you do not > know that what you are doing is "programming in LISP". > > [*] I lost the source where I read that in an organization even > secretaries used Emacs, and that these secretaries learnt how to do > "useful things" without a problem. Mostly because they were unaware > they were programming.
I would have thought that secretaries were more competent at cut-and-paste than I am, and that is the way in which I have assembled my ~250 line emacs startup file. That, and substituting one string for another in these pasted sections and seeing if they still work. I'm afraid I don't call that programming in *lisp or learning *lisp. Some of the code dates back to lenny, and I have no idea whether it ought still to be there, or whether it's having a desirable or undesirable effect. I suspect it, and some other bits have atrophied. When I read through it (like now), I find useful things that I'd forgotten I had set up. OTOH I rely on much of it all the time. If you call the programming/learning, then that's where our disagreement lies, and not in emacs at all. You could equally be talking about those incantations that I feed to ALSA. Cheers, David.
