EmacsLisp is for EmacsNewbies too. Learning Emacs Lisp will log hours into learning to use the Emacs interface. Lisp is the language that much of Emacs is written in, and it is also the language that you can use to customize and extend Emacs for your own use. Also, Emacs Lisp is the best supported programming language in Emacs – save for maybe the C programming language. Learning to use Emacs’s cababilities for Emacs Lisp will likely help with other programming you wish to do in Emacs.
“So what?”, you say? You are a newbie, and, besides, you just want to use Emacs – you don’t care to extend it! Right?
Wrong! You might not care to customize or extend Emacs, but the fact is that if you learn a little about Emacs Lisp, your use of Emacs will be much more effective. Why?
Learning a little Emacs Lisp is not that hard. Emacs does its best to help you learn its lingua franca. So, how can you learn Emacs Lisp?
‘C-x ESC ESC’ to repeat commands you execute, and look at the Emacs-Lisp code that executes them, before hitting ‘RET’ (Return) – see RepeatLastCommand.‘C-h f’ (‘describe-function’) and ‘C-h v’ (‘describe-variable’) to understand commands and variables you use. In the help description, click the function or variable name (link) to go directly to the source code that defines it. Try to read the source code. When you want to know what some function you see used does, use ‘C-h f’ on it… Got it?‘C-h k’ to see which commands you are executing when you use keys. Then follow the previous bullet: click the name (link) of the command to see its source code…‘C-h i’, then choose `Emacs Lisp Intro’. You can also read this manual on the Web.‘C-h i’, then choose ‘Elisp’ (Emacs Lisp is sometimes called “Elisp”). You can also read this manual on the Web.