Some projects related insofar as they are attempts to simplify the initial configuration of Emacs. I've used all but the last at some point and have found them

Some projects related insofar as they are attempts to simplify the initial configuration of Emacs. I've used all but the last at some point and have found them useful (though like any good scaffolding, they become irrelevant over the course of continued Emacs usage): * https://github.com/gabrielelanaro/emacs-for-python https://github.com/gabrielelanaro/emacs-for-python * https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit * http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit * https://github.com/pdee/pdee https://github.com/pdee/pdee I am especially interested to see this get off the ground, though, as even the simplified "starter kits" above still require a certain non-trivial level of contextual Emacs-knowledge -- a simple binary with overly-sane keybindings and functional out-of-the-box would be a real contribution. I would have loved to use something like that myself about a year ago.