The people of Emacs
The philosophy behind Emacs fosters a really wonderful community. There are tons of people that have helped me learn and improve my Emacs configuration and knowledge, but in order to write this post I've chosen three.
Mickey Petersen
When I finished the Emacs tutorial, I was wondering how I could improve my skills. I knew about Planet Emacs, but I didn't have the knowledge to understand the majority of the posts written there. Although I knew the basics of Emacs, I wanted to advance to the next level.
Then I discovered "Mastering Emacs". It was through reading that book that I really went from noob to grasping the more advanced capabilities of the text editor. I became able to skim through other people's posts in Planet Emacs and test their Elisp snippets, programs or configurations.
I have to thank Mickey because it was a really enjoyable read. I could understand every bit of the book without making any effort at all, which finally helped me to learn to use M-x, install and configure packages and evaluate Elisp code.
Sacha Chua
I think it was after reading "Mastering Emacs" that I started looking at Sacha Chua's posts. Sacha Chua is, of course, one of the main pillars of the Emacs community, and in fact Planet Emacs is run by her.
The first configuration that I cloned with git was Sacha's. I learnt a lot by skimming through her quasi-infinite Sacha.org. I started to discover a lot of Emacs packages that I have used every day since.
And of course there is the Emacs News and the Emacs Conf. Sacha is the one who gathers a lot of people around Emacs.
Protesilaos Stavrou
My next step in the Emacs Way is to properly learn Elisp. Here I think Prot is the king, with his affordable coaching lessons. I can't think of a better way to learn. He is patient, knows how to adapt to every person and is a very good teacher. With his help, you can start to craft your very own Emacs configuration including macros and other advanced Elisp stuff.
Then of course there are the Modus themes, which are now part of Emacs itself. There are also a lot of packages written by Prot, accompanied by top-notch documentation. His code is also very clear and easy to read. Perfect for learning.
Prot has also his fantastic "Prot Asks" series of videos, in which he talks with people about a lot of different topics. I was lucky to inaugurate the series of videos and it was a pleasure to chat for one hour with him. Of course, the common denominator of all the people around Prot is the love for Emacs and in general libre software.
Conclusion
Emacs is more than the flagship of the libre software movement. It is a way of life. I think the best way to conclude this post is with a quote from Prot himself:
"Choosing Emacs is not just a matter of deciding how to edit text. It largely is about what kind of person one wants to be."
