Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours (Paperback)

~ Jari Aalto (Author), Charles Curley (Editor), Eric Ludlam (Author), Larry Ayers (Author), Jesper Pedersen (Editor), Jeff Koch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In a perfect world, all text editing programs would be as easy to use as the lean, stripped down, and efficient GNU Emacs. Even with all its simplicity and numerous keyboard shortcuts, Emacs neophytes and longtime users will find a wealth of information and instruction on everything from creating a file to writing a macro in Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours.

Anyone who has ever used Emacs knows that, unless you are using XEmacs, this particular text editor avoids a clunky graphical user interface to display command and program options in favor of placing the complete functionality at the user's fingertips. Chapter 4 provides a thorough list of Emacs's control and meta or Esc key commands that allow you to move about your file and make structural changes like moving paragraphs and deleting entire lines of text.

Later chapters in the book address the usage of higher-level commands like Emacs's search and replace tool as well as writing macros, compact programs that automate common processes by recording sequences of keystrokes. Like the program it describes and tutors you on, Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours is easy to use and efficient in its approach to learning. --Ryan Kuykendall

Product Description

Emacs is one of the most powerful text editors available, yet it is not the easiest to navigate, in part because it covers so much. Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours helps simplify the program by organizing Emacs by function and platform. Included is a full-color tear-out card with key combinations. More than a guide to using GNU Emacs, the book also teaches the basics of other forms of Emacs such as XEmacs. You will get the most out of the editing and programming environment and gain a solid working knowledge of Emacs' features. Also includes a section on using Emacs with Windows.

• Learn Emacs, the editor of choice for UNIX system users
• Simplifies Emacs by teaching functions, customization, and programming in a step-by-step, tutorial format
• Also teaches the basics of related subjects, such as XEmacs, and helps those using Emacs with Windows

Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: Sams (April 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672315947
• ISBN-13: 978-0672315947
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,133,994 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy to understand, well-written book, March 20, 2000

By	Jacob Dall (Flensburg, Germany) - See all my reviews

The word on the street is that EMACS is tough to get in touch with. The book 'Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours' proves that word wrong; it's really not that hard. Coming from the MS-Windows world, one has been used to easy-to-use editors - though not that efficient, due to the limited use of shortcut keys. My very first use of this book was as a how-to-do tutorial. A swift look in the appendix, and I was able to cut, copy, paste and navigate the source like I had never done anything else. When getting curious to learn the more advanced features of the editor, it was necessary to read the book chapter by chapter, but the way it's written makes this quite easy. For each feature mentioned, the writer does a great job explaining the differences between the GNU-Emacs, XEmacs and Emacs for WIN32. In my opinion, this book is definitely one of the better ones. The only issue lacking is how to get the best from Emacs when not using X.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good beginner book on Emacs, October 9, 2001

By	Salil Phadnis (Chandler, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is good beginner book for anyone who is un-initiated to the world of Emacs. Since this book is in a tutorial format like other Sams Teach Yourself books, one can read through this book pretty fast and get up and running using the power of Emacs very quickly. The author does a good job of introducing the reader to many of the powerful functions of emacs and also contantly mentions ways to customize the various functions.
One of the sources of irritation while reading the book is that the author refers too many times to the libraries on the CD rather than the generic functions available in Emacs itself. However, this does get the reader accustomed to the idea of customizing Emacs, which is what makes Emacs such a powerful editor. There is also a introductory chapter on Lisp, which should suffice most beginners.

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent book for learning emacs, October 3, 2009

By	Brad - See all my reviews

To learn a complex editor like emacs, you want a boook that gets you up and running fast but also make you aware of its vast capabilities because only knowing the minimal cheat sheet information when starting out will only frustrate you and blind you to what the editor is really capable of. This book strikes that balance, its very thorough yet very brief and too the point. A book like OReilly's Learning Emacs tends more on just being brief and you may end up giving up on emacs before finishing that book. Unfortunately this book is old and out of print, you can only buy used copies, a new edition of this book is desperately needed. And as another reviewer mentioned, there is a lot of stuff missing from the CD that goes with this book, very surprising considering how meticulously this book was put together.