People go to Stack Overflow because the docs and error messages are garbage

Post by db48x » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 11:43 AM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #9

db48x wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. So many of the people who ask questions on the Emacs stackexchange have never even looked at the manual. Emacs has excellent documentation, and often there will be a whole chapter dedicated to answering that specific question. The title of the chapter will have the same key words as their question. And the manual is readable right inside Emacs! But by asking the question on SE, they can get someone else to go…

Excellent documentation? For Emacs? There is such a thing as overloaded and non-user-centric documentation that is rich in details (if you already knew a few Emacs-type keywords)

The Emacs documentation really is quite good. It is user–centric, as you say, starting by naming the things the user can see and interact with when they run Emacs (the menu bar, the tool bar, etc, etc) before going on to more complex topics, such as how commands are given via the keyboard or mouse.

While it is detailed, it can hardly be called overloaded. The real reference material is in a completely different book, the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. There is also a FAQ, and if you’ve never programmed in Lisp before then there is the Emacs Lisp Intro. Then there are something like 60 other manuals for various packages that come with Emacs, like Org Mode or the calculator. These all serve to keep the core manual from becoming overloaded with details.

You can read them all online at https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/>, should you care to try to prove me wrong.

I estimate that about 30% of questions on the Emacs StackExchange can be answered by quoting from that core manual, another 20% by the FAQ, 20% by the Elisp Intro, the Reference, or the docstrings of individual commands, and another 10% by the manual for Org Mode. The calculator comes up occasionally too. Perhaps 10–20% of the questions on the site are actually interesting questions that require real thought or a look at the source code.

Post by vivekd » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 1:02 PM UTC

karmakaze wrote: post #5

In my experience, the docs are fine and mostly better than a random SO answer. A reason many people use it is because they're lazy or want to get past their hurdle with a quick answer rather than understanding things beyond their current issue. Any time I run into one of these, I'll post a reference to the actual docs as a comment in the top/accepted answer.

> quick answer rather than understanding things beyond their current issue

Well yeah, what's wrong with that. Eg I work in construction I build concrete. I don't know about the various strengths and mixes of concrete. I just know my little field. Me trying to get the perfect concrete mix or designing the rebar would be bad because I don't understand engineering.

It's neither efficient nor productive for everyone to be an expert on every aspect of the tech they are using.

If I have a problem with one tiny aspect of a computer program I shouldn't have to gain an understanding of the underlying framework. I just need the specific task to solve my particular problem.

I want to use flutter to build an app not to understand the details of how these iOS and Android platforms and underlying tech work.

Re: People go to Stack Overflow because the docs and error messages are garbage

Re: People go to Stack Overflow because the docs and error messages are garbage