Summary

This is an Emacs setup with as few (require 'foo) as possible. It uses lazy loading in order to not slow down the initial Emacs startup. Loading and setting up of each feature is postponed to when it is actually needed the first time. At the time when it is really loaded there is a log to the messages buffer for learning purposes.

Opionally there is also a special key binding to use ; as a Control prefix, ; [ as a ESC/Meta prefix and [ to quit the insert-state in Viper mode. This makes ; <anything> work as C-<anything> and ; [ <anything> work as C-[ <anything> which is ESC <anything> which is M-<anything>. To insert a literal ; or [ use C-q ; (now also ; q ;) or C-q [ (now also ; q [).

Usage examples

If you don’t want Viper mode (the vi emulation) remove the line containing (require 'viper) from main.el.

For a quick first trial:

cd <where_you_have_your_git_clones>
git clone https://github.com/brandm/emacs.d.git
emacs -Q -l emacs.d/main.el

With external packages organized in two main directories:

emacs -Q \
      --eval '(setq v-f "<dir_for_single-file-packages>" \
               v-d "<dir_with_one_subdir_per_package>")' \
      -l '<dir_with_one_subdir_per_package>/emacs.d/main.el'

If you use the Colemak keyboard layout together with Viper mode and want to swap p <-> k and n <-> j like me add v-k "co" to the setq command above.

If you want to try the special key binding add v-s t to the setq command above.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colemak
• http://colemak.com

Design rationales

Lazy loading

The functions f-load-path-add and f-auto-loads defined in the file base-definitions.el prepare the load-path and the autoload and auto-mode-alist for lazy feature loading of Emacs packages.

The function f-feature prepares the optional setup of the feature for running once at feature load time. Add only a wrapper function f-setup-feature-foo in order to keep the value of the variable after-load-alist uncluttered and informative.

The function add-hook prepares the optional setup of the buffer local settings to be run each time when a buffer is opened in the corresponding major mode that processes the mode hook. Add only a wrapper function f-setup-buffer-foo to add-hook in order to keep the value of the buffer hook uncluttered and informative.

Logging and tracking of feature loading

During this Emacs setup phase when the lazy loading is prepared the function provide is advised to stop the setup with an error. At the end of the setup phase the function provide is advised to just report without error every provided feature at its load time after the setup.

The error is to track unintended provide of a feature which means it is loaded too early instead of lazy loaded sometime after the setup. The report of provide is to get an impression of which features are loaded and when.

All features prepared for lazy loading through the function f-feature are also tracked to allow to enforce their loading by calling f-require-lazy-features interactively at any time.

Naming convention

To mimic a package prefix the functions have the prefix f-* and the variables etc. v-*.

Background and motivation

When I started with Emacs in 2000 as a beginner I took every (require 'foo) into my setup as if it were meant literally and there would be no other way to load a package. I became comfortable with Emacs Lisp quickly and added more configuration and functionality. Still using (require 'foo) kept me away from realizing how the setup entangled more and more with for example the dependencies of local keymaps. Only after some intermediate steps I got the whole picture with autoload, auto-mode-alist, with-eval-after-load and mode hooks to untangle the setup. The code here is only the part that is already cleaned up. The bigger part with the old mess is not yet ready to be moved to here.