The built-in tutorial is great for learning to edit with emacs, but I'm looking for something that will quickly explain the state of the nation with regard to emacs package management.
The emacs distribution comes with everything under the sun, plus the kitchen sink already. And I mean it literally.
Loading more packages, without understanding elisp and/or how emacs generally work, doesn't translate to "more productivity" in my mind.
That's how you would approach packages in a sane way:
- you start using emacs - you start tweaking a mode that you use often - you decide the tweak is still not enough and/or you envision a better way to do things - you look up online for an alternative emacs package/mode - you install it
The built-in package manager helps you only with the last step. And to be honest, there's not much that you have to do if you want to install it by hand, because at this point you should be at least familiar with elisp and emacs.
Another important note: elisp packages are mostly "stale". There are some big packages which are continuously improving, but whenever I read some mode sources, I discover they were last updated years ago, and didn't really need any changes.
I used to check for a couple of big packages manually on a year basis before using "package". Now I can automate the task, but I actually only update whenever I have a bug I noticed or I have time to read the full changelog.
You don't want your editor to have different behavior between updates, really.
No it doesn't. There is no php-mode which is nothing other than a leadership failure given that PHP it is a decade(s)-old, top-5 language.
That being said, on debian/ubuntu, php mode is "php-elisp" as an official package that you can install system-wide.
Tricks and tips for experienced users: http://whattheemacsd.com/
General Emacs blogs and news: http://planet.emacsen.org/