RE: Is Emacs very alive, active and improving?

[Ludwig, Mark]

> From: Emanuel Berg, Wednesday, August 28, 2013 4:55 PM
> 
> wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) writes:
> 
> > I don't think Google Trends is an accurate measure of how many
> > people are using Emacs, because Emacs is largely
> > self-documenting, not just through the Info manuals but also
> > from the dynamically generated documentation from Elisp programs
> > themselves.
> 
> I've heard that Emacs is self-documenting numerous times, and, if
> this refers to the docstrings of Elisp functions, I have to say
> "self-documenting" is stretching the truth. The docstrings are a
> handy way to provide documentation, and the Emacs access to that
> documentation is provided instantly upon evaluation of the defun
> (of if it is some other thing: a variable, perhaps). This is all
> well and good, but the documentation has to be written
> nonetheless, like any other documentation.

You need to remember that the term "self-documenting" was applied
to EMACS by RMS in the late '70s.  At the time, it was
innovative.  Consider that EMACS back then was a "real-time
display editor" in a world in which the vast majority of
computing was being done on punch cards!

Looking at Emacs today, with things like javadoc, as others have
pointed out, calling it "self-documenting" invokes a yawn as much
as anything else -- but that's what it means.  I also think the
point of view for the term "self-documenting" is from the
"outside looking in."  When I started using EMACS in college in
1980, I remember being amazed and incredibly impressed.  (I
imagine no college student would have any such reaction today,
because the rest of computing has caught up!) 

Cheers,
Mark