Learn Emacs Lisp in 15 minutes

Abstraction: Annotated code tutorial introducing Emacs Lisp fundamentals

Key points:

• Elisp programs are symbolic expressions (sexps) in prefix notation: (+ 2 2) reads "add 2 to 2"
• setq stores values in variables; defun defines functions; let binds local variables
• car/cdr access list head/tail without side effects; push mutates a list
• mapcar applies a function over each element of a list (like map)
• re-search-forward performs regex search in buffers; add-text-properties applies text faces
• Evaluate sexps with C-x C-e (result in minibuffer) or C-j (result inserted in buffer)

Connections: Emacs · Gnu Emacs · Emacs Lisp · Lisp · Functional Programming

Source: http://bzg.fr/learn-emacs-lisp-in-15-minutes.html