An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp

Most of the GNU Emacs integrated environment is written in the programming language called Emacs Lisp. The code written in this programming language is the software—the sets of instructions—that tell the computer what to do when you give it commands. Emacs is designed so that you can write new code in Emacs Lisp and easily install it as an extension to the editor.All through this document, you will see little sample programs you can run inside of Emacs. If you read this document in Info inside of GNU Emacs, you can run the programs as they appear. (This is easy to do and is explained when the examples are presented.) Alternatively, you can read this introduction as a printed book while sitting beside a computer running Emacs. (This is what I like to do; I like printed books.) If you don’t have a running Emacs beside you, you can still read this book, but in this case, it is best to treat it as a novel or as a travel guide to a country not yet visited: interesting, but not the same as being there.