Every millisecond counts during Emacs initialization. A potential performance cost in modern Emacs configurations is defaulting to setopt, customize-set-variable, or the use-package :custom keyword when a direct assignment with setq is sufficient. Disclaimer: This article assumes you have a solid understanding of Emacs Lisp and know what you are doing when switching to setq. For users who prefer a hands-off experience, defaulting to setopt or the built-in customization interface is often better for convenience, even though these options are not the fastest. Using setq is mainly intended for users who want to optimize startup performance. Always check the Elisp definition … Continue reading →