Mastering Emacs

What Hacker News says

1. achyudhAug 2026
   These pages cover the highlights from this release:

   - https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/whats-new-in-emacs-31...

   - https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsThirtyOneHighlights

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2. mickeypAug 2026
   I recommend the tutorial (Help -> Tutorial) from the menu bar inside Emacs to get you started. Don't listen to people telling you to disable this or that. Use your mouse and arrow keys to get started. Don't worry about what other people are doing with their Emacs too much. Pick one thing you want to do with Emacs and focus purely on that (writing Go, taking notes in Org, etc.) and avoid a wholesale move unless you have infinite time and patience.

   See also my reading guide: https://www.masteringemacs.org/reading-guide

   My book is of course an option also, but it costs money.

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3. roundcan7998Aug 2026
   Mastering Emacs: worth every cent. (ignore what author says about it costing money) It is what got Emacs to “stick” for me.

   Just get it already

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4. mimo84Jul 2026
   I also started on spacemacs but then I wanted to learn the basics of it and switched to writing my own configuration from scratch. What helped me the most is reading though the Mastering Emacs book by Mickey Petersen which is an amazing resource to learn the basics and beyond. Right now I'm in the process of reducing the number of external packages I use and I'm trying to use more of the built in functionality that is available "out of the box".
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5. smitty1eJul 2026
   Nice.

   I'm going to go through https://github.com/emacs-tw/awesome-emacs as well as https://www.masteringemacs.org/

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6. sphJun 2026
   Seconded. If you want to learn doing things the Emacs way, I recommend the Mastering Emacs book by Mickey Petersen who roams among these threads. It is excellent.

   https://www.masteringemacs.org/

   This provides an excellent base and exploration of the builtin packages, then you can customize your experience on top and make it your own.

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