September 1996
Beginner to intermediate
568 pages
20h 31m
English
Content preview from Learning GNU Emacs, Second EditionBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
What We Haven’t Included
GNU Emacs is a large and powerful editor; in this book, we’ve been able to give you only a sample of what it does. Many features have been left out, and more features are added all the time. Some topics, however, are missing:
Compatibility modes: GNU Emacs provides compatibility modes for the UNIX vi editor and the VAX/VMS EDT editor. We’ve left a discussion of these modes out. In our experience, compatibility modes tend to be poor emulations of the real thing. If you really want to use vi or EDT, do so. You’re better off getting to know Emacs on its own terms, rather than pretending it is something else.
Many programming language modes: In this book, we discuss the editing modes for C++, LISP, and FORTRAN. There are many modes for other languages; some work better than others, and new modes are added frequently. There’s no way we could discuss everything.
Advanced LISP programming: GNU Emacs incorporates a complete LISP interpreter. We give a very basic and brief introduction to Emacs LISP; Chapter 13 should be enough to get you started, but it really only scratches the surface. The FSF publishes a complete Emacs LISP Reference Manual, and O’Reilly & Associates has a forthcoming title on the subject, written by Bob Glickstein, one of the technical reviewers for this book.
Porting, debugging, and installation: This book doesn’t describe the problems that can arise when porting GNU Emacs to other systems. We believe a book on this topic is needed, but it’s ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.