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Bob Chassell has died

112 points| sillysaurus3 | 8 years ago |fsf.org | reply

13 comments

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[+] sillysaurus3|8 years ago|reply
Here's a link to Bob's book, "An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp": https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/eintr.html

You can buy it here for $25 from the FSF: https://shop.fsf.org/books/signed-introduction-programming-e...

This has been a valuable resource on my own road toward learning elisp, and I'm very grateful he wrote it and made it freely available.

[+] krylon|8 years ago|reply
The introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp was my first contact with Lisp. And the reason I took it up - the excuse I used to cover up my insatiable curiosity - was that I was writing my diary using emacs, and since emacs was all about customization, it should be possible to create a keyboard shortcut to insert the current date and time of day.

And down the rabbit hole I went. So, in a way, Bob Chassell contributed to me becoming a programmer.

[+] squires|8 years ago|reply
One line that made an impression on me when I read this book a few years ago:

"Having GNU Emacs is like having a dragon's cave of treasures"

Meanwhile, the best I can muster about most tools I'm required to work with on a daily basis is:

"This mostly works, I guess"

RIP, Bob

[+] ScottBurson|8 years ago|reply
Oh wow. I've been out of touch with Bob for decades. For a little while there we were both active in the Loglan community (this was before Lojban). I remember once riding my bike from Belmont, MA to meet Bob at some little airfield, where we tossed the bike in the back of his two-seater Cessna and took off for a Loglan meeting somewhere north of there (New Hampshire?).

RIP, Bob.

[+] jordigh|8 years ago|reply
Aw, man, not a day goes by that someone doesn't recommend or discuss the elisp intro in #emacs. It's sad to hear that we lost the original author.

RIP Bob. I only knew you through your writing and your contributions to software freedom.