Karthik
@karthink

I develop and maintain some popular Emacs packages, and write well-researched articles about using Emacs at https://karthinks.com/tags/emacs/.

I'm a hobbyist whose digital life slid into Emacs over decades, as tends to happen. Over the years, I've written many Emacs packages that I continue to support and improve. If any of them have improved your experience, please support my work (GitHub Sponsors or LiberaPay) so I can keep doing it!

My most popular Emacs packages are

• gptel, a simple but extensible LLM client,
• Popper, a popup manager for Emacs and
• Elfeed-Tube, the best textual interface to your YouTube subscriptions!

There are several others filling smaller niches, like consult-dir (a directory switcher, much more generally applicable than you might think!) and consult-reftex (a modern UI for LaTeX references and citation management).

I also contribute to Emacs. A portion of my work ends up or will end up as core Emacs libraries, such as

• an extensive rewrite of LaTeX previews in Org mode (see extended demo and even more extended demo), planned to be merged soon, and
• the timeout utility library, now part of Emacs.

The design of my packages reflect the sensibilities I've developed over the decades about Emacs and digital tools in general:

1. Minimize dependencies, make few assumptions and try to blend in with Emacs like it's always been there.
2. Be available in all contexts, because you cannot know how the tool will be used. Recommend workflows, but never prescribe them.
3. Less is more. Present a small "surface area", but with composable interfaces under the hood so it can work with other Emacs features.

I also write articles about Emacs or about using Emacs for various tasks. Some of them have proved to be quite popular over the years, and -- according to some -- educational. Good technical writing can help spark ideas and smooth the path from user to power user to developer, and I consider it as important as the software.