Comment by foobarqux
Don't use doom etc, just standard emacs, otherwise you won't have any understanding of what is happening and how to fix it. Here's a list of what I think is important, roughly more important to less:
- corfu+marginalia+vertico+embark+orderless is the standard completion stack now
- magit (maybe also see also the "casual" the transient front end for other modes)
- avy
- (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) ; 'Y' or 'N' instead of 'Yes' or 'No'
- (setq confirm-kill-emacs 'y-or-n-p)
- evil (optionally if you like vim keybinds, you still need to know basic emacs))
- if using evil: evil-collection, evil-args, evil-goggles, evil-traces, evil-escape, evil-nerd-commenter, evil-lion, evil-surround, etc are not "standard" but still useful
- configure melpa source
- which-key
- helpful
- undo-fu
- gptel
- projectile
- eglot
- saveplace
- desktop
- uniquify
- dired/wdired
- flycheck/flymake
- treesitter
- general (for making your own keybinds)
- some kind of multicursor mode (I use iedit but it's simple)
- yasnippet
- org (usefulness depends on the person)
Also, very important, learn the help system (C-h <key>), especially C-h f, C-h k, C-h w, C-h c. And the info system
Great list!
For modal editing but more similar to the kakoune/helix model there's the meow package which I prefer compared to evil, for some people it might be worth looking into as its more customizable and allows you to have as much or as little modal editing as you want. I use meow and regular Emacs key chords at the same time without issue for example.