Re: Auto Fill Comments

[Arthur Miller]

Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:

>> Sent: Friday, November 27, 2020 at 6:00 PM
>> From: "Jean Louis" <bugs@gnu.support>
>> To: "Arthur Miller" <arthur.miller@live.com>
>> Cc: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>> Subject: Re: Auto Fill Comments
>>
>> * Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com> [2020-11-27 19:43]:
>> > I learned it through hacking init file, and I am not good at Emacs
>> > internals, I don't have time to sitt hours and go through all
>> > if-defs and thousands of lines of lisp. I wish I did. But when I
>> > don't know how to do something, I ask, and if they tell me I don't
>> > understand it or have missed it, I don't tell them they manual sux
>> > or code is horribly structured. Sometimes error is in our selves, in
>> > this case, Dimech is probably not used to read the technical manuals
>> > and that's not more.
>>
>> I was asking different type of questions on #emacs IRC back in 2016,
>> and back then I did not know hot to look into references to get myself
>> Emacs insights. When one does not know where to look to there can be
>> bunch of references but one cannot find it. Today I have different
>> types of questions. There are progress stages for Emacs users.
>
> As things get more complex, figuring out how to look becomes problematic.
> Today, looking far things has became a subject in itself.
> If things get more complicated that you cannot understand it in
> your lifetime (that time could come), then we all got to rethink
> the whole thing, even though we don't like it.
Indeed, finding relevant information is not always trivial. But there is
also a skill of being focused and finding only those pieces of
information you need to accomplish what you need. When I made my first
hack to emacs, I had no idea how it does; I hacked it to accept
non-commentsin lisp; it wasn't liked on this list; nevertheless it was
just few lines of code to get it to do that. I still have not much
understanding of Emacs internals, and by now I have one idea approved
and taken into Emacs. We all get stuck; I particulary do; I am still not
very used to Lisp, and that felt incomprehensible for me when I was
reading it; but I went out on the web, red stuff, even found a book and
translated into English; that helped me understand Lisp and now I
understand Emacs Lisp manual much better and don't find it
incomprehensible (or at least hard) any more. Every language has its
idioms, jargon, etc; you have to get into it, if you wish to work with it.