[HN Gopher] Learn Elisp the Hard Way (2011)
___________________________________________________________________
Learn Elisp the Hard Way (2011)
Author : AndroidKitKat
Score : 68 points
Date : 2022-01-31 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| The right way IMO is to just start customising your Emacs with a
| very ready and very introspectable distribution (like Doom or
| Spacemacs) and then poke around to fix what you don't like.
|
| Though I guess a book can be helpful to learn best practices. But
| with how excellent the emacs documentation (including describe-
| function, describe-variable and describe-key, to know what you
| should edit) you can just jump in right away.
| agumonkey wrote:
| In a timely manner, this just popped up:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/sh5msl/the_basics_of...
|
| The guy shows how to configure and basic elisp stuff
|
| ps: direct link to the video
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaF-N-FuGtc&t=193s
| AndroidKitKat wrote:
| I wanted to use an Emacs distribution, but ended up against
| them as I've always preferred to just use the tool barebones
| and add on functionality when I need it. Maybe I'll dedicate
| some time to trying out Doom or Spacemacs and see if I am
| really missing anything that I haven't cobbled together from
| reading the built-in documentation and snippets of lisp.
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| I think a distribution is just much more convenient, mostly
| because of package discovery and the time it takes to set
| things up. Other people take care of making your editing
| experience nice, and some things just take a long time to get
| working otherwise.
|
| That said, it's true that you can in principle do the same
| thing yourself :)
| reddit_clone wrote:
| That is my experience as well. I had a messy, ball of mud
| .emacs file for a couple of decades.
|
| When I found Doom, I dropped my .emacs and it became just a
| few dozen lines of org/templates config. The rest is all
| doom.
|
| I even adopted Vi (A lifelong Vi avoider..) and am getting
| proficient with it.
|
| Sometimes you want to get your hands dirty and configure
| everything. Sometimes you adopt something that is created
| and supported by experts and just enjoy it. Both are fine I
| guess.
| AndroidKitKat wrote:
| I think if I were to start over learning Emacs (I only
| really started using it about 6 months ago), I would have
| decided to choose a distro only for package discovery. I
| haven't found myself really pining for new functionality,
| but perhaps I am completely oblivious to things I'm
| missing. I've only really added magit to Emacs since I
| hated working with git on the command line.
|
| I still imagine I would have found myself just finding what
| packages I like and adding them to a "pure" Emacs, since
| I've done that for the other tools I use on a day-to-day
| basis.
| bananamerica wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from. I did the same I still
| recommend Doom Emacs. It's excellent. Bare ones Emacs will
| probably take a lot more work than you anticipate.
| Kototama wrote:
| I have found `use-package`, some hooks and some modules with
| provide/require are enough. These Emacs distribution come and
| go and I'm not sure doom Emacs will be there in 15 years.
| Also while they are good at providing something coherent for
| newcomers they just get in the way if I need to fix
| something. It's similar to the debate frameworks versus
| libraries. I'm just looking at them for inspiration sometimes
| and taking the good parts.
| bananamerica wrote:
| How can Doom get in your way, when you can simply remove
| entire modules and/or specific packages with ease? And even
| if I keep those packages, I can simply change anything I
| want by just putting the setting in my init with "use-
| package!"?
|
| I never had this problem, I have been using Doom for two
| years, and Emacs without Doom for years before that.
| tra3 wrote:
| Another option is to look at existing modules on MELPA, standing
| on the shoulders of the giants etc.
|
| I really learned a lot from org-roam-ui [0]:
|
| - websockets - http server - creating an API - and of course
| internal emacs functionality.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam-ui
| bonthron wrote:
| Learn Elisp the Easy Way: M-x info "Emacs Lisp Intro"
| nanomonkey wrote:
| This is the way.
|
| Sadly this documentation isn't distributed with the Ubuntu
| version of Emacs, and a newcomer has to jump through some hoops
| to get it installed. Which is probably an appropriate learning
| experience.
| birriel wrote:
| I agree with an appropriate learning experience, but the docs
| are the stuff supposed to get one started:
|
| sudo apt install emacs-common-non-dfsg
| susam wrote:
| The Emacs Lisp Intro manual is also available online here: ht
| tps://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/eintr/in...
| emacs28 wrote:
| Creating my own non-trivial minor mode was what really got me to
| start understanding Elisp and Emacs as a whole more under the
| hood.
| scruple wrote:
| What was the minor mode that you created?
| emacs28 wrote:
| vertical-center-mode:
| https://github.com/trevorpogue/vertical-center-mode
|
| It let's you "scroll above the top line" so that the top text
| in a file can be centered in the screen.
|
| I still need to clean it up and submit to MELPA
| scruple wrote:
| I've been looking for ideas for my own minor mode for the
| same purpose. Thanks for sharing!
| vjust wrote:
| The easy way is thru the late Robert Chassell's book "Emacs Lisp
| Intro". I know someone mentioned it , but I bought a hard copy of
| Chassell's book and its great to learn, esp from one of the core
| members, in a different style. My brain refuses to dig books
| written in the same "new" way.
| tromp wrote:
| The link to http://learn-elisp-for-emacs.org/ seems to be broken,
| redirecting to https://www.gooroo.com/ instead...
| Kessler83 wrote:
| The linked document isn't representative of books on Lisp or
| Emacs---it reads like a half-finished idea for a sketch of a
| pitch for a book. Since it is more than 10 years old, the project
| likely got abandoned at a very early stage. Writing a book is a
| lot of work, so don't mean this as criticism against the author.
| Just thought I'd say it in case someone doesn't want to waste
| time downloading and building something unfinished.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-31 23:01 UTC)