Emacs Rocks

Out of box / vanilla Emacs is pretty confusing doesn't include many popular packages - that is why some pre-made configs are very popular. On the other hand they might overwhelm you with features and very opinionated decisions.

If you want something close to what most users probably have setup and yet still close to vanilla you can give Emacs Prelude a try: https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/

I started with it, tried out the package selection, but then started a smaller config from scratch with what I liked from it.

Also good links:
https://www.masteringemacs.org/reading-guide
http://emacsrocks.com

I don't believe one should restrict oneself to a single editor, but rather follow a path of least resistance - Emacs is actually the path of least resistance when you want to have a custom editing experience.

Overall I use four editors Emacs, vi, notepad++ and VS Code. Emacs when doing Clojure or any other code so I can have something that is very convenient for me, vi and notepad++ on machines where I don't want to setup a config or where I do only simple text editing and VS Code where I would ocasionally need to install a plug-in, but I don't need to use it often.

The Emacs tutorial is a great place to start.

Using Emacs is a bit of a paradigm shift in text editing, so you should expect a bit more work up front for great results later on. Going through the tutorial and learning the basic vocabulary and commands takes care of most of that up-front cost and should not take long. I think it took me less than two weeks of fairly casual use.

Part of the beauty is that most of the things in the blog are not limited to Python. All the general text-editing stuff trivially transfers to other languages you may want to learn. And Emacs supports any language you do want to learn to one extent or the other. For some languages, Emacs is even the only option!

So you should consider going through at least the beginning of all this even if you're not interested in Python per se.

Also, check out some of the Emacs Rocks![1] videos. I keep on recommending them because they are awesome. They really show off why Emacs is truly magical.

[1]: http://emacsrocks.com/

I very much second this comment.

Learning Emacs is a very interactive process (much as Emacs itself). It's best to introduce new extensions one by one as you need them, and spending some time using them.

I consider myself a noob Emacs user (having been using it exclusively for the last 4+ years), and here's a trick I use if I feel overwhelmed/annoyed by some extension: I decide to spend 30-60 minutes (to the clock; personally I measure it in pomodoros) practicing the mode itself. Such focused learning gives wonderful results. For instance, I spent 30 minutes on learning multiple-cursors.el and now I can't imagine living without it. Or I was always confused by Paredit, but it took about one hour of practicing it to become proficient in it. Again, I now can't imagine working in Lisp without Paredit.

Discovering interesting modes can be a task in itself; I suggest browsing through at least Emacs Rocks short videos[0], they introduce many a handy utility.

[0] - http://emacsrocks.com/

Sorry if I sounded frustrated.

Don't listen to the haters. EmacsLisp is a real Lisp. You can use it to do solve real problems. It gets better all the time as people add stuff that has worked for years to the package archives (see elsewhere in this elnode thread where someone adds a redis client).

What I would say is you need to reach out more, come to #emacs and ask lisp questions. Play with Emacs (it's SO easy) and check out all the videos that people have been doing recently (http://emacsrocks.com/ and the one from me today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7DPvEi7Jg).

Elnode is a good way to get into Lisp because it's easy and it's in Emacs which is just a great Lisp environment.

r/emacs is a wonderful community. Also, many young people are picking it up and starting youtube channels, demonstrating beautifully how to use it. Magnar Sveen has done many excellent videos (http://emacsrocks.com/). Also, Protesilaos Stavrou on Youtube: Wonderful videos, albeit a little academic for some (but I like it a lot). Also, System Crafters on youtube: From basic to sophisticated videos.

Emacs (with its beautiful language `Lisp`) is a tool that will be with you for the rest of your life. I have seen many many tools come and go, but Emacs (just like Lisp) has the potential to be around in many decades. So it's well worth investing time in it.

I would say its a big, fat, maybe.

If you are hoping for some panacea of developer efficiency, you will probably be disappointed. At best, they are just another way to do most of the same things you can already do, with vscode. For some tasks, they will undoubtedly be more efficient or easier. For others, they will make your life more difficult.

If they interest you, sure give them a shot. Maybe check out some screencasts, and see if you like what they do/how they work:

- http://vimcasts.org/

- http://emacsrocks.com/