Re: How to get skills in elisp ?

[Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org>]

Francis Moreau <francis.moro@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

> But now I got the main picture of the language but I would need some
> practice since the reference manual lack of examples before I feel
> confortable enough to start writing my own elisp scripts.
>
> Could anybody give me some direction at that point ?

As always in learning (programming) languages.  Pick some elisp lib that
you use and try to understand how it works by looking at its code.  Then
try to extend it if a functionality you'd love to have is not included.

> Also I would like to know how people debug their scripts?  Are there
> any tricks?

For debugging the edebug facility is what you're looking for.

,----[ (info "(elisp)Edebug") ]
| Edebug is a source-level debugger for Emacs Lisp programs with which
| you can:
| 
|    * Step through evaluation, stopping before and after each expression.
| 
|    * Set conditional or unconditional breakpoints.
|    [...]
`----

> For now I just write some forms and evaluate them with 'C-j'.

That's one possibility.  Another good way is using a REPL.  Have a look
at IELM (M-x ielm RET).

Bye,
Tassilo