Emacs

I am trying to read the documentation delivered with emacs.  

Firs I will probably need a configuration file and have it adapted to utf-8.

I find some information: you have to put  -*- coding: utf-8 -*- at the beginning of the init file.

Ok done , but when I start emacs I get an error: 

Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/dechicom/.emacs.d/init.el’:Symbol's value as variable is void: -*-

To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the

cause of the error in your initialization file.  Start Emacs with

the ‘--debug-init’ option to view a complete error backtrace.

So I still need to learn!

I try a search with google and find the reason: the correct code is :

;; -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

So why didn't I get the right answer first hand?

A lot of phrases, a lot of explanations and no examples that give rapidly an idea of what we are talking about. This is often the problem. Very often I continue to read with a wrong idea or no idea at all about what has been written. I must have lost months of work and feeling a lot of pain trying to understand just a little how to use the GNU tool for  configuring and building a package.

Some people say that the biggest failure in the GNU system is the documentation.

But is it true?

The problem is to understand what documentation you have to start with.

It is not clear to me.

And it is also not clear  if they really want us to understand how to use the packages with the "standard" information they give us or is it only a "cost" problem?

I will have to buy something.