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Comment by gtrak | Hacker News Reader

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gtrak·

Would this be appropriate for emacs wannabe users like me? I'd love to shave off some years of the learning curve.

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I recently put this guide together: http://david.rothlis.net/emacs/howtolearn.html

Its focus is on self-driven discovery by leveraging the Emacs built-in help and source code. Feedback welcome.

Very very nice tutorial.

Careful when you say elisp `if` is a function, it's a `special form` aka different evaluation semantics.

Thanks! After "pretend that if is a function" I do immediately proceed to explain evaluation semantics: "what does it mean by 'if is a special form'? It turns out that if isn’t a regular function." Of course, I am open to suggestions for better wording etc.

That's assuming you were talking about the "cc-mode customization" chapter. If I've called "if" a function anywhere else please let me know! And keep the feedback coming. :-)

My bad I stopped reading too soon. So maybe just using a different verb than 'is' would be enough to avoid confusion. (and yes I was on the cc-mode customization page)

I think that should be the aim for any tool conference, to help new users get a leg up and to help existing users move it forwards. Same for Emacs. The great thing about Emacs is that it's so big and versatile everyone can learn something new all the time.

Would there be space for a hands-on workshop for new users? What would such a workshop cover?

Hey @drothlis, make a proposal on the site about what you'd want to see, others will pitch in no doubt

Hi @gtrak, why not :) Just make a proposal on the site, see what people say. The idea is for the conference to be shaped by the people, everybody has a say.

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