Re: don't show the $-bar that indicates text before and/or after the window view, horizontally

[Jambunathan K]

Emanuel

One does not have to be a Technologist to use or be proficient with
Emacs.  This is what RMS has to say

,---- http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html
|
| It was Bernie Greenberg, who discovered .... He wrote a version of Emacs
| in Multics MacLisp, and he wrote his commands in MacLisp in a
| straightforward fashion. The editor itself was written entirely in
| Lisp. Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new
| editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his
| office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had
| written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a
| programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do
| programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they
| could do useful things and they learned to program
|
`----

Remember he is talking about secretaries in early days of computing
learning Emacs and learning programming in the process.  I am sure
secretaries had no CS degrees and more importantly they belonged to a
period when computers were not common place and were quite the cutting
edge.  I just laugh when young kids in this day of Google complain that
Emacs is primitive and is difficult to learn.  I consider it a joke.  

That you have to be super-human to learn and use Emacs is more of a myth
and in reality has no truth to it.  We can learn a lot from these
secretaries and each other...

> Like I said, I don't consider that advanced, 

Whatever I don't know is advanced for me.

For example, what sounds like a basic move in kick boxing to you would
be advanced for me.  This is because I know nothing about kick boxing.

By same token, fringe-mode is advanced for me.  Because I never knew
fringe-mode when this conversation began.

> and besides I read every book on Emacs I have gotten hold of, plus
> every Emacs chapter in every general Linux book I ever saw. To assume
> I didn't read anything is in itself an insult, and incorrect at that.

Books on Emacs are old.  They should be lagging behind on quite a good
amount of stuff.  I learn a lot by listening to conversation here.  For
example, I learnt about fringe-mode as part of this thread.

One commmand that I frequently use is this,

  C-h d something

Another thing that I use is,

  C-h r i something
  C-h r I something

  M-x customize-group RET something RET

I also look at the source code 

  C-h f fringe-mode

and read the help buffer.  I click on the file and also all the
hyperlinks to see what all is there to learn about fringe-mode, for
example.

You can add the following to your .emacs.

 (find-function-setup-keys)

 C-x F fringe-mode 
 C-x V fringe-bitmaps

will take you directly to the source code.  

I look at the comments in the source file to see what the author "says"
about his creation.

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It all boils down to how will you pick up on something that is not
documented in the books.  Read the manual.  Look up the documentation.
Peek in to Emacs by setting a break point.  Have conversation with
others who are familiar with internals etc.

Most importantly one learns by imitation, by just going through the
motions, without thinking too much about motions themselves.  Yes, you
are spot on how to learn the punches ...

Sometimes, I try to answer someone because I myself don't know how it is
done.  In the very process I have hit upon gold numerous times.

If you aspire to become a Technologist, there is no end to the road.

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One thing I will offer as suggestion is to stick to the theme of the
post.  The GNU Emacs Help forum is about conversation about Emacs.

Here the conversation shouldn't about Emanuel, Eli, Drew, Juanama,
Rustom or even RMS.  The conversation should be about Emacs and nothing
else.

So you should talk less about yourself.  For example, there is no need
for us to know that you are a Tech enthusiast.  What we want to know is
that you are an Emacs user and you have experience and insight to share.

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