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Writing GNU Emacs Extensions
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by Bob Glickstein
Sales Rank: 337915
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$17.99
At Amazon
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Paperback: 236 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly; 1 edition April 1, 1997
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1565922611
ISBN-13: 978-1565922617
Product Dimensions:
9.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Book Description
Yes, it is possible to be all things to all people, if you're talking about the Emacs editor. As a user, you can make any kind of customization you want, from choosing the keystrokes that invoke your favorite commands to creating a whole new work environment that looks like nothing ever developed before. It's all in Emacs Lisp -- and in this short but fast-paced book.
GNU Emacs is more than an editor; it's a programming environment, a communications package, and many other things. To provide such a broad range of functions, it offers a full version of the Lisp programming language -- something much more powerful than the little macro languages provided in other editors (including older versions of Emacs). GNU Emacs is a framework in which you can create whole new kinds of editors or just alter aspects of the many functions it already provides.
In this book, Bob Glickstein delves deep into the features that permit far-reaching Emacs customizations. He teaches you the Lisp language and discusses Emacs topics (such as syntax tables and macro templates) in easy-to-digest portions. Examples progress in complexity from simple customizations to extensive major modes.
You will learn how to write interactive commands, use hooks and advice, perform error recovery, manipulate windows, buffers, and keymaps, exploit and alter Emacs's main loop, and more. Each topic is explored through realistic examples and a series of successive refinements that illustrate not only the Emacs Lisp language, but the development process as well, making learning pleasant and natural.
Book Info
Teaches the Lisp language and Emac topics such as syntax tables and macro templates. With this book you will learn how to write interactive commands; use hooks and advice; perform error recovery; manipulate windows and more. Paper.
Customer Reviews & Comments
...is reading this book. Step 1 would be to read O'Reilly's "Learning Gnu Emacs" from cover to cover. Step 2 would be to start bookmarking "Info" pages in the Emacs and Elisp manuals (inside Emacs; Emacs can bookmark places in files you've edited, bookmark directories, bookmark Info pages, etc.); and then you are ready to read this book. While you can become proficient in Emacs just by learning a handful of commands, to be truly productive and happy you must learn most of the features and use them. This is a very long process (over a year for me, learning a little bit more each day). But what I've gained from the journey is invaluable. For example, one insight I've gotten is that Emacs can work very well for the novice (open/type/save/close) and the expert (write major mode to handle new language) equally well, and this idea can apply to any software project. (Sure, it sounds simplistic but the moment of "Aha!" is more profound than that.) This book is fairly small and progressively introduces new ideas in writing Lisp code to add functionality to Emacs. I think in retrospect the topics covered were well chosen because I have looked up the examples time and again to use code snippets. Step 4 in mastering Emacs is to read the newsgroup gnu.emacs.help every day for a few months, which will teach you about a great many features Emacs has that are not covered in any book (or covered very well, like term mode, font-lock and many more).
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Writing GNU Emacs Extensions
Available from Amazon
Price: $17.99
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