New HOWTO: Emacs Beginner's HOWTO - page 6
Table of Contents, Section 1
6. Other Resources
This section covers books, web sites, newsgroups, mailing lists, and
other places you can find more information about Emacs.
6.1. Books
There are a a few really good books available for learning Emacs. In
addition to these, you'll find that many Linux and Unix books also
contain a chapter or two about Emacs (and vi).
6.1.1. Learning GNU Emacs
Authors: Debra Cameron, Bill Rosenblatt, Eric S. Raymond
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates - http://www.ora.com/
Commentary: This is probably the best book to start with. After you've
read the HOWTO and looked through the FAQ this book serves as a
comprehensive and very approachable tutorial.
6.1.2. Writing GNU Emacs Extensions
Author: Bob Glickstein
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates - http://www.ora.com/
Commentary: After you've used Emacs for a while and have decided that
you'd like to try writing your own mode or maybe try out some advanced
customization, this is the book for you. While it doesn't attempt to
teach Lisp, it does contain a brief introduction to the language.
6.1.3. Programming in Emacs Lisp: An Introduction
Author: Robert J. Chassell
From the README file:
This is an elementary introduction to programming in Emacs
Lisp for people who are not programmers, and who are not
necessarily interested in programming, but who do want to
customize or extend their computing environment.
You can retrieve the manual in its entirety via anonymous FTP from the
GNU FTP server: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/emacs/.
Commentary: This a good introductory manual for Emacs Lisp--even if
you're not a heavy-duty programmer.
6.1.4. The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
Author: Richard Stallman
Publisher: The Free Software Foundation - http://www.fsf.org/
You can retrieve the manual in its entirety via anonymous FTP from the
GNU FTP server: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/emacs/.
Commentary: This is the definitive guide to the Emacs Lisp programming
language.
6.2. Web Sites
6.2.1. EMACSulation
EMACSulation is a column written by Eric Marsden that appears in the
on-line magazine Linux Gazette located at
http://www.linuxgazette.com/. The most recent column as of this
writing is located at
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue39/marsden.html. Scan to the bottom
of the article for links to previous ones.
6.3. Newsgroups
Search you local news feed for newsgroups which contain the string
``emacs'' and you'll probably find many. Those which my server carries
are:
� comp.emacs
� comp.emacs.sources
� gnu.emacs
� gnu.emacs.bug
� gnu.emacs.help
� gnu.emacs.sources
6.4. Mailing Lists
There is a mailing list for GNU Emacs which is hosted by the Free
Software Foundation. See the web site
http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs for more
information.
The only mailing list devoted to Emacs that I know of right now is the
NT-Emacs list. It is a list for folks who are using the Micro$oft
Windows version of Emacs. See the NT-Emacs FAQ
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html for more
information.
6.5. The Emacs Lisp Archive
From the Emacs Lisp Archive README:
The Emacs Lisp archives on ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu contain
various pieces and packages of Emacs Lisp code. Emacs Lisp
is the language used to extend the GNU Emacs editor pub�
lished by the Free Software Foundation. Although much Emacs
Lisp code is included in the GNU Emacs distribution, many
people have written packages to interface with other sys�
tems, to better support editing the programming language
they use, to add new features, or to change Emacs' default
behavior. Most of the contents of this archive have been
written by individuals and distributed publicly over the
Internet through the info-emacs or info-gnu-emacs mailing
lists or the comp.emacs, gnu.emacs, or gnu.emacs.sources
newsgroups.
The archives are available via anonymous FTP from ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-
state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/.
NOTE: As far as I can tell, the Emacs Lisp Archive is slowly becoming
out of date. I see very few new (or updated) packages appearing there,
though I know they exist. They do get posted to the comp.emacs.sources
newsgroup. (Feel free to correct me if this is wrong.)
7. Credits
The following people have contributed to the success of this document.
� Craig Lyons Craig.Lyons@compaq.com
� Robert Vollmert rvollmer@gmx.net
� Larry Brasfield larrybr@seanet.com
� Etienne Grossmann etienne@anonimo.isr.ist.utl.pt
� Thomas Weinell kf6mli@amsat.org
� Adam C. Finnefrock adam@bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu
� Chris Gray cgray4@po-box.mcgill.ca
� Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com
� Isaac To kkto@csis.hku.hk
� Matteo Valsasna valsasna@elet.polimi.it
� Tijs van Bakel smoke@casema.net