ISBN 1-56592-469-X Price £20.00 UK approximately
Debra Cameron, Bill Rosenblatt & Eric Raymond
16 Chapters, 8 Appendices, Glossary and Index in 509 pages
Chapter List
1 Emacs Basics
2 Editing Files
3 Search and Replace
Operations
4 Using Buffers and Windows
5 Emacs as a Work Environment
6 Email and Usenet News
7 Emacs as an Internet
Tool
8 Simple Text Formatting
and Specialised Editing
9 Marking up Text with
Emacs
10 Writing Macros
11 Customising Emacs
12 Emacs for Programmers
13 Emacs LISP Programming
14 Emacs and X
15 Version Control Under Emacs
16 Online Help
Appendix A
How to Get Emacs
Appendix
B
Making Emacs Work the Way You Think it Should
Appendix
C
Emacs Variables
Appendix
D
Emacs LISP Packages
Appendix
E
Bugs and Bug Fixes
Appendix
F
Public Statements
Appendix
G
Give and it Shall be Given
Appendix
H
Quick Reference
Colophon
Synopsis
Learning GNU Emacs is all about the Emacs editor which comes with every distribution of Linux. There are many people who use Emacs and many other people who prefer to use vi instead. This isn't really the place to discuss a religious war. This book is for people who need basic help.
Review
Many people have sat in front of me and said things like "what is Emacs" ? And when they are confronted with it on a monitor they just frown and walk away. They don't have access to a reliable source of info about Emacs and the idea of clicking a mouse and looking at something on the internet isn't something that they can do. Or perhaps they are too lazy ?
This particular book is very good for people who don't quite grasp the sort of things that you can do with Emacs. The first chapter explains a few basics and there's a quick reference card in the back of the book which gives a complete list of commands that are used with Emacs. Couldn't be easier to use ? Chapter two gets into editing files and takes you up to making Emacs work in the way that you want it to work. It's a good idea to hold the steering wheel when sitting in the driving seat ? Chapter three starts on search and replace operations. Very useful when you might be working with thousands of lines of text. Chapter four gets in to using buffers and windows followed by Emacs as a work environment in chapter five. This is a lead up to what you can do with Emacs and the internet. It really is a tool that can be used for everything ? The next chapters explain aspects of specialised text editing and then some details of programming methods are introduced. C and C++, LISP and FORTRAN modes are discussed. At chapter fourteen Emacs and X are shown to be part of each other and the fact that Emacs is native to X-windows is introduced. A short chapter on version control finishes the book and there is a quick section on online help which is useful.
This is one of the easier books about Emacs. The authors have very obviously spent a lot of time talking to each other about various aspects of the finished product. Their talents shine through the finished volume. Wether you are a system administrator or a student who is learning some basic Unix programming methods this book will be of some use to you.
"Colophon"
"The animal featured on the cover of Learning GNU Emacs, Second Edition, is a gnu or wildebeest. Gnus are African antelopes that inhabit the Serengeti Plains. Male gnus are no more than 52 inches in height and 500 pounds in weight, but have the most lethal horns of any of the antelopes. Bulls are very territorial and tend to remain alone. The females and young generally live in small herds. However, they may congregate in tens of thousands during migration. Gnus are the favourite prey of lions."
Very useful in tech support call centres ??
Review by Richard Ibbotson
