Emacs buddy idea

I have just published a little blog to propose an Emacs "buddy" kind of mentoring: [https://ag91.github.io/blog/2022/02/23/would-you-like-an-emacs-buddy-i-can-help/](https://ag91.github.io/blog/2022/02/23/would-you-like-an-emacs-buddy-i-can-help/) I plan to report on the success or failure of the initiative here. Has anybody got great mentoring experiences for Emacs? I would be interested to hear so that I could help best if anybody pings me to help them as a buddy!

I'll be your buddy (you definitely could use a mentor). But Google is both friendlier and smarter than I -- anyone -- will ever be.

Thanks for the offer u/fragglestickcar0, who doesn't need one? Google is a tool not a mentor.

I haven't ever "mentored" anyone in Emacs Lisp, but it does sound interesting and I think the idea would help many. It took me a long time to teach myself Emacs Lisp, and most of my struggles were self inflicted.

Great idea. I have been working with Spacemacs for at least a 100hs. Might save a newbie some time and I also would like a mentor. To take my Spacemacs skills to the next level. Maybe with macros, bindings and more automation. I develop in Clojure BTW.

> Has anybody got great mentoring experiences for Emacs? Yes, when sending patches to Emacs, someone will help you along the way. Also, when asking on emacs-help mailing list, usually there will be someone who will help you. Buddy-idea is cool, but it has drawbacks. You have to have your buddy available, while on list there are more eyes who will look and be able to help you. Also, your buddy might be wrong and pass wrong info to you, while on list, if someone gives a wrong advice someone else usually corrects it if it is wrong. Often, you will see questions answered of filled in by emacs devs themselves, /u/eli-zaretskii or Monnier are typically correcting if information is a bit inaccurate, or missing something important, they clarify why things are as they are etc. I don't think you can get a better buddy than [help-gnu-emacs](https://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group=emacs).

> Google is a tool not a mentor. I was about to say the same about OP.

cool! I am thinking a moment on how to facilitate others to mentor as well. I will ping you for that. I am not a Spacemacs user but I use Emacs for Clojure too :D

For this to work I think you'd need it to be: - Social, where both people like to communicate/catch up. - Some shared interest (within Emacs), so you would use using Emacs for similar tasks. If your using Emacs for totally different tasks you wont have much in common.