So what you posted here...this is what I want to see in the OP's otherwise well-intentioned guide. I can say "yes" to a lot of those things, and "maybe" to the others...Don't get me wrong, I love learning new things, especially languages...but in this case, we're talking about a tool that is critical for me to learning other things...when writing an evangelism guide, the saying, "show don't tell", is even more urgent.

That said, I'm going to hold off of emacs at the moment. My goal has still been to learn vim :)