history of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
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From: xahlee on 19 Jun 2008 15:52 does anyone know the history about who are the main persons that wrote the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual? According to the manual itself: http://xahlee.org/elisp/Acknowledgements.html quote: «This manual was written by Robert Krawitz, Bil Lewis, Dan LaLiberte, Richard M. Stallman and Chris Welty, the volunteers of the GNU manual group, in an effort extending over several years. Robert J. Chassell helped to review and edit the manual, with the support of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA Order 6082, arranged by Warren A. Hunt, Jr. of Computational Logic, Inc.» So, the first author listed are Robert Krawitz and others. Richard Stallman didn't come until after 3 names. Does anyone have some history or reference as to how the manual came together or better picture of who are the main authors? By publishing convention, if i were just to write âwritten by xyz et al.â, that would be Robert Krawitz. But as far as i know the first few persons listed are little known... anyone got detail? Thanks. Xah â http://xahlee.org/ â
From: Tim Bradshaw on 19 Jun 2008 18:44 On Jun 19, 8:52 pm, "xah...(a)gmail.com" <xah...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > does anyone know the history about who are the main persons that wrote > the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual? > I suspect that the acknowledgements are correct. For a long time there was no elisp reference manual at all - there was an emacs manual and there were docstrings but that was it. Certainly this was true in the Emacs 17 timeframe. I have some vague memory that there was a period when there was an elisp manual you could get from some different source than emacs, written by, I suppose, these people, but then it got merged. --tim
From: John Thingstad on 19 Jun 2008 18:48 P� Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:44:44 +0200, skrev Tim Bradshaw <tfb+google(a)tfeb.org>: > On Jun 19, 8:52�pm, "xah...(a)gmail.com" <xah...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> does anyone know the history about who are the main persons that wrote >> the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual? >> > > I suspect that the acknowledgements are correct. For a long time > there was no elisp reference manual at all - there was an emacs manual > and there were docstrings but that was it. Certainly this was true in > the Emacs 17 timeframe. I have some vague memory that there was a > period when there was an elisp manual you could get from some > different source than emacs, written by, I suppose, these people, but > then it got merged. > > --tim From emacs 18 on at least there was a elisp manual. But you had to download it seperatly. (I only started with emacs in 1987) -------------- John Thingstad
From: Robert L Knighten on 20 Jun 2008 04:26 "xahlee(a)gmail.com" <xahlee(a)gmail.com> writes: > does anyone know the history about who are the main persons that wrote > the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual? > > According to the manual itself: > > http://xahlee.org/elisp/Acknowledgements.html > > quote: > > «This manual was written by Robert Krawitz, Bil Lewis, Dan LaLiberte, > Richard M. Stallman and Chris Welty, the volunteers of the GNU manual > group, in an effort extending over several years. Robert J. Chassell > helped to review and edit the manual, with the support of the Defense > Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA Order 6082, arranged by Warren > A. Hunt, Jr. of Computational Logic, Inc.» > > So, the first author listed are Robert Krawitz and others. Richard > Stallman didn't come until after 3 names. > > Does anyone have some history or reference as to how the manual came > together or better picture of who are the main authors? > > By publishing convention, if i were just to write “written by xyz et > al.”, that would be Robert Krawitz. But as far as i know the first few > persons listed are little known... anyone got detail? > > Thanks. > > Xah > ∑ http://xahlee.org/ > Even though I get acknowledged in the manual, my contribution was 20 years ago and my memory is fading. But there is a little bit of information at http://www.gnu.org/bulletings/bull4.html which says: "Thanks to Dan LaLiberte for spearheading the GNU Emacs Lisp Programmers Manual, and to Bill Lewis and Tom Scott who have been working on putting it all together." You can read a little bit about Dan LaLiberte's contribution (as a graduate student at University of Illinois - Urbana Champagne) at his web page: http://www.hypernews.org/~liberte/ and I expect he will be happy to tell you more. I remember exchanging e-mail with him and also recall Bil Lewis (http://www.lambdacs.com/bil/bil.html) being involved, but I don't recall Tom Scott and notice that his name disappeared by the time the manual was actually published. I think that Krawitz and Welty are relatively recent additions to the team and that neither LaLiberte nor Lewis are currently active. My recollection was that as on pretty much all parts of GNU Emacs Stallman's role on the Emacs Lisp manual was as original creator, godfather and critic of all things Emacs. -- Bob Knighten RLK(a)knighten.org
From: Xah Lee on 20 Jun 2008 09:58
Thanks. Very informative. I've added few more links i found to home pages of some of the other major contributors. http://xahlee.org/emacs/day_one.html Xah â Xah wrote: > > Does anyone have some history or reference as to how the manual came > > together or better picture of who are the main authors? On Jun 20, 1:26 am, Robert L Knighten <R...(a)knighten.org> wrote: > Even though I get acknowledged in the manual, my contribution was 20 years ago > and my memory is fading. But there is a little bit of information athttp://www.gnu.org/bulletings/bull4.htmlwhich says: "Thanks to Dan LaLiberte > for spearheading the GNU Emacs Lisp Programmers Manual, and to Bill Lewis and > Tom Scott who have been working on putting it all together." > > You can read a little bit about Dan LaLiberte's contribution (as a graduate > student at University of Illinois - Urbana Champagne) at his web page:http://www.hypernews.org/~liberte/and I expect he will be happy to tell you > more. > > I remember exchanging e-mail with him and also recall Bil Lewis > (http://www.lambdacs.com/bil/bil.html) being involved, but I don't recall Tom > Scott and notice that his name disappeared by the time the manual was actually > published. I think that Krawitz and Welty are relatively recent additions to > the team and that neither LaLiberte nor Lewis are currently active. My > recollection was that as on pretty much all parts of GNU Emacs Stallman's role > on the Emacs Lisp manual was as original creator, godfather and critic of all > things Emacs. |