Emacs exercises to become more comfortable and familiar with the editor itself as well as Lisp? [closed]

Question

There's a great project called the Ruby Koans, it's a series of tasks to exercise yourself in the Ruby language, stepping you through the standard library using the Ruby Unit Testing suite as a learning tool. It's a great project.

I'd love to see something similar for Emacs.

Can anyone recommend any Lisp exercises to be done inside of Emacs to both exercise Lisp and Emacs usage? Perhaps also while completing the Ruby Koans?

Answer 1

There used to be lesson in .el format (emacs lisp) at http://www.gnuvola.org/software/elisp-tutorial/.

You can find a copy of the tutorial here now.

I learned a lot from them. You read them in emacs in lisp interactive mode, and practice within the text.

Answer 2

The book, "Writing GNU Emacs Extensions", comes pretty close to what you're asking for.

But, if you don't want a book, there are three similar questions already in stackoverflow: What's the best way to learn lisp, How to quickly get started at using and learning emacs, and Tips for learning elisp.

I don't know a "walk through" series that exists, but have found that the best way is to start thinking about little things you wish it did, and then trying to make it work (asking here helps). Even if Emacs already provides such functionality, you might find it more interesting to solve problems you want solved, rather than a bunch of throw-away lessons that hold little interest to you.