Emacs Configuration Repository

I finally got my entire Emacs configuration into source control. My previous solution was to copy around my .emacs.d/ to each computer I use. This works well enough with two computers, but beyond that it’s difficult to propagate any changes I make. Counting all my VMs, I have around a dozen systems where I use Emacs. This is the exact problem that source control exists to fix.

If you move your .emacs and .emacs.d/ out of the way, clone my repository right into your home directory, clone the submodules, and then run Emacs 23 or greater, you’ll see my exact Emacs setup, theme and all.

cd
git clone git://github.com/skeeto/.emacs.d.git
cd .emacs.d
git submodule init
git submodule update

Notice there’s an init.el in there. Emacs tries to load ~/.emacs first, but if that doesn’t exist it loads ~/.emacs.d/init.el. That’s why you need to move your own .emacs out of the way to see my stuff. I do still make use of a .emacs file. That’s my system-specific configuration, where, for example, I tell Emacs where to find Javadoc files. At the top of this file I make sure to load my other init file.

;; Load standard configuration
(load-file "~/.emacs.d/init.el")

One reason I didn’t use source control right away was the submodule problem — my configuration is largely made up of other repositories. Git has good support for putting foreign Git repositories within your own repository, but a couple of repositories I was using were Subversion and CVS. I managed to cut down to just Git repositories

and one Subversion repository, for which I now maintain a Git mirror, making these *all* Git repositories

. (Update November 2011: YASnippet has moved to Git.)

I also trimmed down a bit, cutting out some things I noticed I wasn’t using (breadcrumbs, pabbrev) or things that didn’t need to be in there, such as Slime. I now use Quicklisp to manage my Slime installation, which I connect with my configuration in my system-specific .emacs. Using source control will help better track what I’m using and not using, keeping the whole thing more tidy. Removing an experimental addition should be a simple revert commit.

Some of the important pieces of my configuration are a spattering of new modes, Magit (M-x g), yasnippet (including several of my own snippets), dired+, ParEdit, smex, my Java editing extensions, and a web server (M-x httpd-start).

Have a comment on this article? Start a discussion in my public inbox by sending an email to ~skeeto/public-inbox@lists.sr.ht [mailing list etiquette] , or see existing discussions.

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Chris Wellons

wellons@nullprogram.com (PGP)
~skeeto/public-inbox@lists.sr.ht (view)