help-emacs-windows
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [h-e-w] EmacsW32, gnuserv, pathes in .emacs


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: [h-e-w] EmacsW32, gnuserv, pathes in .emacs
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:47:22 +0300

> Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 09:08:03 -0400
> From: Ken Goldman <address@hidden>
> 
> In general the docs are not very useful for creating a .emacs.

Please report any such specific failures as bugs, but please describe
in detail what you were trying to do and how.  Emacs has a wealth of
documentation features, but it takes time and effort to learn how to
use them efficiently in each specific situation.  I frequently find
that people who complain about documentation usability didn't use the
right approach to search for the information.  Of course, even if this
is true, it can still be a bug in the docs, that's why it is important
to tell the details.

> As I've been "reporting as bugs" for years, the reason is that it
> has no sample code.  There seems to be a philosophical objection to
> putting sample code in the documentation.

The sections about the init file do show sample code.  And the ELisp
manual is, of course, replete with sample code, so I cannot see how
you can conclude that there's some philosophical objection about that.

> Here's an example:
> 
> Suppose I want to set the color for comments.  I figure out that the
> variable is font-lock-face-attributes.  The manual says "See its
> documentation string for details."  C-h v font-lock-face-attributes
> says "not documented as a variable".  Dead end.

Jason already answered this.

In any case, if it will be eventually decided that there is some bug
here, please send the bug reports to emacs-devel, where the
maintainers will see them and act upon them.  Thanks in advance.

> What I'd like to see in the manual is sample code like this:
> 
> (setq font-lock-face-attributes
>       ;; FACE                       FG         BG      bold italic underline
>       '((font-lock-comment-face             "gold"     "red"   1     nil   
> nil)
>       ))

If you need sample code for simple assignments like that, you should
either use Customize (which will write the code for you) or invest
some effort in reading the ELisp manual, which teaches Lisp and many
important ELisp coding issues.  It is generally impossible to write
programs without knowing the language; Customize was invented so that
users will not have to write code in an unknown language just to
customize Emacs.

> The documentation gives me a homework assignment; Google gives me the
> answer.

The problem with Google is that its answers are frequently outdated
and just plain wrong, and so could cause you more trouble than help.
The documentation, OTOH, is always correct and up to date by
definition (modulo bugs).




reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]