[Aidevah]

A lot of modern packages which began outside emacs have now been gradually been merged into the main emacs tree and come pre-installed (use-package for clean per package configuration, eglot for LSP support, tree-sitter, which-key etc). So you just need to learn how to configure them.

The most important packages which make emacs feel "modern" that are still outside the emacs tree for now are the ones which makes completion better, both in the main buffer and also in the minibuffer (what others may call your "command palette"). They are

- consult: search and navigation commands, provides candidates for...

- vertico: vertical display of candidates in the minibuffer

- marginalia: annotations for the candidates

- orderless: orderless fuzzy match for candidates

- embark: right mouse context menu for candidates

Getting these setup would make your whole journey onwards much smoother.

[scott01]

I second this approach. After setting these ones up, together with lsp-mode and company-mode (I like experience better than eglot), my configuration stayed mostly the same. I also kept adding new shortcuts for functions I needed (like symbol rename or function list), and am currently at a point when Emacs became a very efficient editor for me personally. I also moved most of these shortcuts over to yyIntelliJ editor at work where Emacs is not very practical due to lack of convenient debugger (C++, Unreal Engine).

[alfiedotwtf]

I wanted to go down the Egypt path, but lsp-mode supports DAP whilst the now-built-in Eglot doesn’t?! :(