You might try the elisp programming intro. You can read it online at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emac

You might try the elisp programming intro. You can read it online at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/, but the right way to access it is within emacs. It should have an entry in the list of top-level nodes you'll see if you hit M-x info. Emacs also has a built-in repl, the Interactive ELisp Mode. Hit M-x (alt-x) and type ielm (your cursor will have jumped down to the minibuffer below the mode line) and hit enter. You'll find yourself in a buffer with an elisp prompt, where you can use tab completion and elisp's doc functions to do a lot of learning: (documentation FOO) (apropos STRING) documentation finds the docstring attached to function FOO and apropos searches for functions whose names match STRING.