this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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How rewarding learning Elisp can be? (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by Fate_sc@alien.top to c/emacs@communick.news
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I'm a new emacs user and I've been using doom emacs for a while now and i'm willing to learn Elisp, but found out that it might not be as easy as it might seem at first, because as i found out, lisp is quite different from other programming languages that i'm used to, especially knowing that i'm not a programmer by any means and my programming knowledge is very little, not mentioning that elisp is pretty old so the learning resources might not be as much as other more popular programming languages

so my question is, Is it worth it?

like what is the level of mastery do i need to achieve to start implementing custom elisp in my configs to enhance my emacs experience?

and how exactly can i improve my emacs experience if i learned elisp?

in other words, how rewarding it would be

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[–] MitchellMarquez42@alien.top 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes. It's worth it.

If you've ever tweaked your Doom config, you're already writing elisp. Going from setting options to writing new modes will certainly take time, but lisp is a language that builds on itself.

In fact, Emacs+elisp is one of the best systems for learning by doing. C-h f, C-h v, C-x C-e, etc will get you far. The built in tutorial is absolutely worth going thru, and understanding lisp will improve your understanding of other languages as well.

[–] _Lycea_@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There is a buildin tutorial ? where can I find it , since I also would love to get started learning more elisp!

[–] spauldo@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There's a tutorial for using Emacs - the key combination to enter the tutorial is on the welcome screen (I think it's "CTRL-h t" but I don't have it in front of me). It doesn't cover elisp.

There are two elisp manuals available via the info system (CTRL-h i), a reference manual and an introductory text. They're also available in other formats and are online as well. The reference manual is kept current with every release. I'm not sure about the introductory text, but the core of elisp hasn't changed (I think) since lexical scoping was made the default several years ago.

Edit: added availability of manuals in non-info formats.

[–] a-concerned-mother@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

If you prefer a more modern looking interface there is also https://emacsdocs.org/docs/elisp/Emacs-Lisp