.emacs.d VS yay-evil-emacs

If you want to dip your toes, I'd maybe try out https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs if you like vi style keybindings or https://github.com/seagle0128/.emacs.d or if you want to use something more traditional. Then I'd recommend https://github.com/gcv/julia-snail for the julia side of things.

Do not use doom as the heretics suggest! It is an awful experience and very janky, they also change how emacs is configured in a weird way that doesn't lead to one understanding the lisp or how emacs starts up. I'd suggest witchmacs (https://github.com/snackon/Witchmacs) or centaur emacs (https://github.com/seagle0128/.emacs.d) to get a feel of how a config actually looks like. With doom it is obscured under so much. As an exvimmer I moved to god-mode and emacs bindings just because everything always works with these. Using evil gets a little complicated since it doesn't always function properly. But using evil is probably best for you at the moment.

My favourite emacs starter kit is centaur emacs, it makes great use of hydras and improves on the standard key bindings. But I have to say I love the look of NΛNO and the svg-lib. u/Nicolas-Rougier, have you thought about combining some of the features of centaur with your work?

If you are looking for an alternative to doom without evil mode, I recommend centaur emacs. https://github.com/seagle0128/.emacs.d

To me, Vanilla Emacs config certainly. I create Centaur Emacs for myself and share to others.

There is https://github.com/seagle0128/.emacs.d and there is my own distro https://github.com/Ultra-Hax/magmamacs which is more minimal but less customizable and more opinionated both of these distros are very minimal and blazing fast.

Example configuration - https://github.com/seagle0128/.emacs.d/blob/e225dbe431f1e7ad368f3fe11d63ceb60c5acfcb/lisp/init-window.el#L142

That said, I found that setting up evil wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. If you want to see how simple it can be, you can take a look at the pull request I linked in the original post. I can also recommend taking a look at this config for another example of how setting it up can actually be very simple: https://github.com/ianyepan/yay-evil-emacs

I personally also maintain a lightweight config with better defaults, aimed at new Emacs users, perhaps it could help you too: https://github.com/ianyepan/yay-evil-emacs

And here for an unopinionated literate config I maintain: https://github.com/ianyepan/yay-evil-emacs

I suggest you look at other publically shared configs and "distributions". E.g. yay-evil-emacs is one such "distribution", and is different from the author's personal config.

If you feel lost in basic customization of Emacs, perhaps my project yay-evil could help. It's fairly simple to follow (if I may say so myself) and has over 270 stars -- so at least quite a few beginners have found it useful.

This is not a video styled tutorial, but I actively maintain a yay-evil framework aimed at beginners to help them build their own vanilla config. Feel free to give it a try! https://github.com/ianpan870102/yay-evil-emacs

I'd check out Yay-Evil and Corgi.