Many—probably most—of you have upgraded to Emacs 29.1 by now. If you’re like me you have a basic idea of what’s changed but don’t wait to read the NEWS file before installing the update. Who can blame us? It’s long and detailed and much of it concerns things we don’t use and know nothing about.
My usual procedure is to install the update and then read Mickey’s article on what’s new. The odd thing is that the article, which he publishes for every major update, is always just an exegesis of the NEWS file but his commentary and helpful explanation of what some of the more esoteric changes mean makes reading it easier and less onerous than reading the plain NEWS file.
Even so, I find it hard to read through the whole thing it just one sitting. There’s just so much to absorb. None-the-less it’s very worthwhile taking the time to read it. If you’re like me, much of it won’t affect you much but buried in all those changes are some items that will very much affect you and that you definitely will want to know about. Often they’re small changes that you might not read about in the technical press or other online commentary but that are important to your workflow. If you don’t spend the effort to read through the NEWS file, you might never learn about them. Fortunately, Mickey’s articles make it a bit easier to do that.