- M-EMACS
- About EMACS
- About M-EMACS
- Startup
- Package Management
- Global Functionalities
- UI Enhancements
- General Programming
- Programming
- Web Development
- Office
- Internet
- Miscellaneous
Emacs changes how you think about programming.
Emacs is totally introspectable. You can always find out 'what code runs when I press this button?'.
Emacs is an incremental programming environment. There's no edit-compile-run cycle. There isn't even an edit-run cycle. You can execute snippets of code and gradually turn them into a finished project. There's no distinction between your editor and your interpreter.
Emacs is a mutable environment. You can set variables, tweak functions with advice, or redefine entire functions. Nothing is off-limits.
Emacs provides functionality without applications. Rather than separate applications, functionality is all integrated into your Emacs instance. Amazingly, this works. Ever wanted to use the same snippet tool for writing C++ classes as well as emails?
Emacs is full of incredible software concepts that haven't hit the mainstream yet. For example:
- Many platforms have a single item clipboard. Emacs has an infinite clipboard.
- If you undo a change, and then continue editing, you can't redo the original change. Emacs allows undoing to any historical state, even allowing tree-based exploration of history.
- Emacs supports a reverse variable search: you can find variables with a given value.
- You can perform structural editing of code, allowing you to make changes without breaking syntax. This works for lisps (paredit) and non-lisps (smartparens).
- Many applications use a modal GUI: for example, you can't do other edits during a find-and-replace operation. Emacs provides recursive editing that allow you to suspend what you're currently doing, perform other edits, then continue the original task.
Emacs has a documentation culture. Emacs includes a usage manual, a lisp programming manual, pervasive docstrings and even an interactive tutorial.
Emacs has a broad ecosystem. If you want to edit code in a niche language, there's probably an Emacs package for it.
Emacs doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas, and there are other great tools out there. Nonetheless, we believe the Emacs learning curve pays off.
This beautifully written About EMACS section credits to Remacs.
M-EMACS is a custom GNU Emacs setup and configuration distribution that aims not only to enhance the default Emacs experience, and hopefully be a sample that everyone can easily navigate and reference through a highly detailed README that contains 99% of the entire configuration code.
As a young EMACSer, I have experienced the struggle to find a detailed configuration that is loosely coupled and highly readable. This mostly due to the nature of source codes, sometimes comments are harder to notice or simply not enough. Therefore I decided to construct this README and present any human-readable explanation in a much more human-friendly way. Anyone, particularly Emacs beginners who have no idea where to start with their personal config, is more than welcome to read through this document and copy/paste any part to use it on their own.
This distribution is designed and tested for GNU Emacs 26.1 and above only. However, it is always suggested to use Emacs 27, the latest stable version released, for its significant improvement in the core that's out of the scope of M-EMACS. 
Some heartwarming responses from the Emacs community:
- "Actually I understated how much I liked reading through your config… What makes me excited about this config is the readability and possibility of extending in a similar way." – from u/Orgmonics
- "I have to say Matt's setup has the best clarity of all emacs setups I have ever tried. It's really a good template to develop your own emacs config. Thanks again…" – from u/fqye
- "Thanks for the fantastic emacs setup, I love emacs, but trying to get lsp working right was killing me, yours worked out of the box and all I had to do was add some bindings, it's really a time saver" – from ahonnecke
- "Thank you for helping a guy out and for sharing this. I hope this evolves to be into something really big." – from d3v-S
- and more… Love you guys! ❤️❤️