Upon receiving your wonderful new Elan Programming Environment your first inclination, no doubt, is to sit down in front of your computer and try it out. This desire is understandable, but will lead to severe disappointments unless you already know how to program and know the language Elan. This manual cannot teach you programming, for that we refer you to the textbooks mentioned in the introduction. In chapter 4 you find an overview of the Elan language. In chapter 5 you find a description of the Elan Programming Environment. <#2#>The best strategy is to read those two chapters first before embarking upon the present chapter<#2#>.
The example session in the current chapter introduces you in a hands-on fashion to the use of the Elan Programming Environment. By following the session to the letter you obtain a quick tour of most of its facilities.
In this chapter we will mark output from the Elan Programming Environment with a line in the left margin; the input of the user is given without such a mark. The cursor will be depicted as . In input from the user we will explicitly indicate the ``return'' or ``enter'' key by <#3#>;SPMlt;RET;SPMgt;<#3#> and the ``delete'' key by <#4#>;SPMlt;DEL;SPMgt;<#4#>.