Learning GNU Emacs
by Debra Cameron, Bill Rosenblatt, Eric S. Raymond, James Elliott, Marc Loy · first published 1991
64% recommend36% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A practical introduction and reference for Emacs, offering a structured path into buffers, help, and customization. It also serves as a handy reference once the basics are known.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
<h2>Printing History</h2> <dl> <dt>October 1991</dt> <dd>First Editions.</dd> <dt>April 1992</dt> <dd>Minor Corrections.</dd> <dt>September 1996</dt> <dd>Second Edition.</dd> <dt>December 2004</dt> <dd>Third Edition.</dd> </dl>
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Hmmm, here's a list of books I really like: Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C++ by Frenck The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System by McKusick/Neville-Neil Learning GNU Emacs by Cameron, et al. Practical Common Lisp by Seibel The C Programming Language by K&R The C++ Programming Language Stroustrup The Design and Analysis of Algorithms by Leviten Assembly Language Programming…
on “Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf?” ↗This is a good starting point: Learning GNU Emacs http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565921528/ This might ease some pains: http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/effective-emacs
on “ABLE - A Basic Lisp Editor” ↗…too much, and the chaff obscures the wheat. It frustrates me too, as there's some really good stuff there that I don't know about. Suggest grabbing the emacs book https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-gnu-emacs/0596... and/or the emacs manual from https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/ (free pdf) and go through them. They will repay the time! Good luck and remember any pro emacs user will trip themselves…
on “Vim-Mario: Mario on Vim” ↗…really prefer it over emacs or vi (which are open source and ubiquitous -- you'll probably never need to learn another text editor ever again). Learn one of those. Whichever one you like best. O'Reilly's Learning GNU Emacs was a very good book for me when I was a beginner; there's probably a similar book for vi.
on “Ask YC: Is vim worth learning and why?” ↗I learned emacs from an O'Reilly book: Learning GNU Emacs http://books.google.com/books?id=a_lea3-w-1kC&printsec=f... If that and/or the tutorial doesn't do it for you, google "emacswiki" and see what else you can find. Also, "steve yegge emacs" (but maybe…
on “Ask YC: Learning an Editor” ↗I learned Emacs last year from the O'Reilly book, "Learning GNU Emacs" - http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Emacs-Third-Debra-Cameron/dp/... It's an excellent reference and introduction. I also blindly followed Steve Yegge's advice here too, which turned out to be great: http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs
on “Thoughts on Learning Emacs” ↗…great. I like the way it handles buffers & bookmarks better than vim. I actually use the calendar feature. I like how the functions you right get integrated into the help facility automatically. The "Learning GNU Emacs" book is great. The architecture seems better than vim. I wasn't thrilled with all the "chording", but I'm writing new functions and making the keybindings comfortable for me. The help facility seems…
on “There are many things you can say about Emacs...” ↗Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596006488.do I've been using Emacs for ~5 years now, and I switched from Sublime Text. I used Vim here and there but I wasn't a huge fan, and I always…
on “Ask HN: Resources to grok Emacs and use it well?” ↗Just a nitpick: The O'Reilly book title is actually _Learning GNU Emacs_. (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006488/)
on “Ask YC: Why is emacs a great editor?” ↗…niche in software development. "Textmate: Power Editing for the Mac" is 200 pages, $30 for a print edition. "Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought" is 346 pages, $30 for a print edition. "Learning GNU Emacs: A Guide to Unix Text Processing" is 536 pages, $36 for an e-book. It seems to be generally the case, and these examples bear it out, that e-books are priced lower than physical copies, and shorter books…
on “Show HN: Sublime Text Book” ↗He's definitely a participant, both in terms of software (off the top of my head: fetchmail, several contributions to Linux, Emacs, and Nethack) and tech books (The Art of Unix Programming, some of Learning GNU Emacs, others). If anything, the problem with ESR is that he considers himself an expert on explaining hacker culture to outsiders, yet tends to excessively project his own values, politics, etc. on it when…
on “Why Python?” ↗…(4th ed.) sed & awk (2nd ed.) lex and yacc (2nd ed.) Learning the bash Shell (3rd ed.) Linux Pocket Guide (3rd ed.) $8: (all of the above, plus) bash Cookbook Classic Shell Scripting Learning GNU Emacs (3rd ed.) Unix Power Tools Learning the vi and Vim Editors (7th ed.) Bash Pocket Reference (2nd ed.) Learning Unix for OS X (2nd ed.) $15: (all of the above, plus) Essential System Administration…
on “Humble Book Bundle: Unix” ↗It was a long time ago, but I got a book "Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition". Its a shame that there isn't better documentation to get past the navigation stuff. There were some short video tutorials I used too (I can't find right now...) The story linked here…
on “Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?” ↗