Emacs Lisp is an enigmatic hacker programming language. Its weaknesses are well known. It slow. It is single-threaded. Its variables are dynamically bound. I can go on, but these are the main objections. Despite these perceived weaknesses, Emacs Lisp is still the most popular Lisp language on github. Many programmers swear by it. Myself, I probably average writing between 50 and 100 lines of Emacs Lisp daily.

Of course, I decided to invest my time learning it, and I am more than happy that I did. I really wish I had done so sooner. The mentioned problems dissuaded me from investing much into the programming language. But now, I seriously wish I had taken the time to learn it years ago.

What makes it so awesome, despite the mentioned problems? Why should anyone bother learning Emacs Lisp?

So, without further ado, 5 reasons to learn Emacs Lisp today:

  1. Learning almost any amount of Emacs Lisp makes your life better immediately. What you learn can improve your life right now. Not one year from now. Not after graduation. Not when your team starts the next project and you might be able to use this language.

    Many lisp languages are on the theoretical side of the spectrum. That is great, and it certainly has its place. However, Emacs Lisp is much more “quick and dirty”. Emacs Lisp is very practical, and helps you solve your day to day problems.

    If you don’t know any Emacs Lisp, your .emacs file is probably full with copy-and-paste code that you used to install packages. Which is normal. The trouble is, this gets ugly, quickly. Soon your .emacs file becomes really hard to maintain. Learning Emacs Lisp helps keep your Emacs life sane.

    If you ever need to get any help about Emacs, there is a high chance that the person who decides to help you will include some Lisp code. Its pretty hard to tell someone “sorry, I don’t know any elisp” on ##emacs on freenode. Knowing Emacs Lisp gives you a better grasp of the community.

    Learn Emacs Lisp. It makes your life better, today.

  2. Emacs Lisp and Emacs is a really interesting programming platform. You don’t have to be a rabid Emacs fan to care; I think anyone would agree that Emacs is objectively interesting.

    Chances are that you have some exposure to the ideas behind Smalltalk, such as, you know, that whole “objected oriented” thing. Well, besides Smalltalk as a programming language, it is also a programming environment. That same remarkably powerful spirit lives on in Emacs. Just about everything is immediately viewable and inspectable by the user. Emacs is basically a descendant in spirit of those systems.

    Want to know what a keybinding does? C-h k, and then the keybinding. Want to know how that function works? C-h f, then the function name. Want to actually see its source code? Click on the link that appears in that buffer. Oh, and you can actually modify it on the fly if you need to, just by changing the function definition and evaluating it with C-x C-e

    When programming in Emacs Lisp, you get real work done with a system that is our modern day equivalent of the stuff of legends. Bonus: this system isn’t just some intellectual exercise. It is practical, awesome, and immediately useful.

  3. Dynamic binding is actually pretty awesome. Lets go through a quick review of what dynamic binding is, exactly, and contrast it with the other option, lexical binding.

    First, lets talk about variable binding, specifically, in pseudo-Javascript:

    function createAdder(num_to_add)
{
  function(new_num)
  {
    return num_to_add + new_num;
  }
}
   
add2 = createAdder(2);
   
add10 = createAdder(10);
   
   
console.log(add2(6));  //= 8
   
console.log(add10(13));  //= 23

    Lets discuss this code. createAdder is a function which will return another function – that is, it “creates” an “adder”. The function that createAdder returns will add whatever was passed to it (the new function) and the original number that was passed to createAdder.

    The important point here is that whenever createAdder returns, the function that gets returned still has access to the argument that was passed, the num_to_add. Whatever variables are within a parent’s scope when a function gets created remain available to it for its execution.

    Lexical scope is great. It enables really elegant solutions to problems, and is what makes Ajax and Node.js sane and possible.

    Dynamic scope is different. With dynamic scope, variables are bound and evaluated at evaluation time. They get evaluated to whatever is above in the call stack.

    An example, in a pseudo, now dynamically-scoped Javascript:

    function adder(new_num)
{   
   return num_to_add + new_num;
}

function add2(new_num)
{
   num_to_add = 2;
   return adder(new_num);
}

function add10(new_num)
{
   num_to_add = 10;
   return adder(new_num);
}    

console.log(add2(6));  //= 8

console.log(add10(13));  //= 23

    The key difference is that within the body of the function adder, num_to_add does not seem to refer to anything. However, since this language is dynamically bound, its variables are referenced from where it gets called. So, the function add2 sets the variable num_to_add, and when adder is called, it is able to reference it.

    You are probably thinking that this sounds a lot like global variables. And, it is. This is the reason that most modern languages are lexically bound, not dynamically.

    In practice it really doesn’t tend to be that bad. Variables that you are expected to change are well documented. Code only uses dynamic scope resolution when it needs to, and typically doesn’t need to very often.

    Dynamic binding is actually really convenient. For example, it allows you to make variable-based “configuration” changes that only last within a given scope.

    Besides that, there is also a macro, called lexical-let, which gives you the functionality you would get with lexical binding.

    If that isn’t enough, Emacs 24 now supports actual lexical scoping. You just need to set a variable within the elisp file, saying that you want lexical scoping.

    So. Dynamic scoping is actually pretty cool.

  4. Single threading is a good thing. Emacs lisp is single threaded, and probably forever will be. This is somewhat limiting, however it does greatly simplify things.

    Enough said. If you really want to deal with locks and their ilk, sorry, you will have to look elsewhere.

  5. Everything about Emacs makes more sense once you understand Emacs Lisp. You may have noticed that Emacs is extremely self documenting, and that the documentation is extremely comprehensive. However, much of that documentation only makes sense within the context of Lisp code. So, if you don’t understand Emacs Lisp, then much of that documentation is worthless.

    As an example, to understand the Emacs keybinding system, you really need to have a grasp on the way that keybindings are constructed. And, that means Lisp.

    Honestly, Emacs lisp is everywhere in Emacs, and while Emacs can be really useful without knowing any Lisp, it becomes way more useful when you understand the native tongue, Emacs Lisp.

So, you should learn Emacs lisp. It is a really fascinating environment to program in and it has the potential to make pieces of your life much easier. Besides that, to me, the problems of Emacs Lisp are not significant enough to be truly dissuading – in fact, most of them can be considered strengths.

In all, Emacs Lisp is a delight to work with, and I cannot recommend learning it highly enough to anyone who considers themselves a serious programmer.