RE: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals

[Drew Adams]

> > No, those are not use cases for a *tutorial*.  Those are use cases
> > for a demo or a user guide or an introduction/overview.
> 
> I disagree.  Someone who's interested in trying out Emacs might like
> to write some Python code (say), and might be better served by a
> tutorial that showcases what Emacs can do in that specific context,
> focusing on how to use various features like completion, eldoc,
> interaction with an inferior process, installing new ELPA packages,
> looking up help, tweaking the indentation rules, ...

So?  You're just saying that such a person could benefit from a
*tutorial* that is oriented toward using Emacs with Python.

Nothing wrong with that.  You can learn to bake cookies using a
cookie-baking tutorial, and you can learn to feed turtles using a
turtle-feeding tutorial.  Why not?

> > A tutorial is about learning by *doing*.
> 
> That's a property of its form, not its function.

Tutorial vs demo vs user guide overview vs cheat sheet... *is*
about form difference.  The function of any or all such forms of
help can be to serve as an introduction to learning a subject.
They do it differently.

And of course it is possible to combine different forms.

You can call anything a tutorial if you like.  I don't care.

For me, a tutorial is something that involves the user *doing
stuff*, not just viewing or reading.  Think of the difference
between reading a Shakespeare play and acting it out.

A tutorial is inherently *interactive*.  There is some (clear)
way to "act it out").  There may even be several such ways.
This is the case even if the way the recipe to follow is
communicated by watching a video or playing a game or reading
or telepathy or...

Typically, a tutorial walks users through the recipe in some
way, or helps them walk themselves through it.

So yes, the difference that makes something a tutorial is a
difference of form, but a tutorial can take multiple forms.

If it is not easy to "follow along" by doing something
yourself (at least doing something in imagination, but
preferably physically too), then the learning tool is not
much of a tutorial, IMO.  It may still be a good learning
tool, even if it is not a very good tutorial.

A good tutorial has clear instructions, whether or not there
might be multiple possibilities (different ways to follow,
different routes to take).