Here's another short video - this one on declaring functions in elisp.

Not much to say about it. It's similar to other languages.

In Python or C++ you might have:

  # Python 
  def add2(a, b):
    return a+b

  // C++
  int add2(int a, int b){
    return a+b;
  }

Elisp is similar:

  (defun add2 (a b)
    (+ a b))

But it's a little more "mathy." You've got the special form defun, then the name of the function, parameters in parens and then the body - all wrapped in parentheses. Note that you don't explicitly write return. It's mroe like a mathematical expression where it returns what the function evaluates to.

The video also describes the (interactive) form. By using it, we can call our function as a command and bind a key combination to call it.

I do want to share one quick note on the content though - in the video I write (dotimes (i 5) (next-line)) to move down 5 lines. Instead of using dotimes I could have just given a parameter to next-line - that is, wrote (next-line 5). I chose to use dotimes in order to introduce some control code. I wanted newbies to see it here before we revisit control structuers more in depth in later videos.

Speaking of later videos, here's whats to come, maybe in a different order.

• A video, probably with some internet lore and history on writing arot13 function which is a special case of a Caesar cipher.
• One on creating a function to make a consistent function header
• How to create a mode so that when you type an emoji in :'s you get the emoji. So, by typing 🐘 you'd see this: 🐘.
• A function to use an API to replace a word with a synonym.
• And maybe a few more along the way.

For now, enjoy this short intro to writing functions:

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3wdkJa87No