Re: a couple of novice questions

[Peter Lee]

>>>> Pascal Bourguignon writes:

    >> Secondly, how does one find a matching opening brace, paren,
    >> etc?

    Pascal> It's automatic. When you close a paren, the cursor moves
    Pascal> to the matching opening paren.  Or, if you double-click on
    Pascal> one paren, it selects all its contents and the matching
    Pascal> paren too. Or if you use backward-sexp or forward-sexp
    Pascal> (C-c , or C-c .), it moves over matching paren.
 
I use C-M-p (backward-list) and C-M-n (forward-list).

,----[ C-h f backward-list RET ]
| backward-list is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `emacs-lisp/lisp'.
| It is bound to C-M-p.
| (backward-list &optional ARG)
| 
| Move backward across one balanced group of parentheses.
| With ARG, do it that many times.
| Negative arg -N means move forward across N groups of parentheses.
| 
`----

Also you can look at:

,----[ C-h v blink-matching-paren RET ]
| blink-matching-paren's value is t
| 
| *Non-nil means show matching open-paren when close-paren is inserted.
| 
| You can customize this variable.
| 
| Defined in `simple'.
`----