Emacs and VIM users, what's the best starters guide for a beginner?

if you have vim installed (already installed on Linux, macOS). then run vimtutor for an interactive tutorial.

I made myself recently to use VIM and to give it a full go. Found some plugins, installed them and got it for a spin. At first it was a complete chaos, a one big mess with all kind of different keystrokes, bashing over keyboard, tying to find out what fits my needs, what I really need, and what is just there but not being used. After 2-3 days it all settled down. Now I enjoy working in VIM and fingers memorized all keystrokes that I need. I still miss some commands/features and will eventually find out how to do those things (multi line comment/uncomment, indentation, etc.)

tl;dr If you really want to learn VIM, start using it, and google everything that you need.

Re Emacs, Xah Lee has some great tutorials for beginners as well as vets, and great packages, too

For the newcomer, I'd recommend:
ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs.html

I tried doing vim tutorials but they always turned me off. Learning Vim is more about just doing it. Delete your other editor and leave no where to retreat. When you are doing something in Vim and it feels frustrating, google what you are doing and you'll learn how to do it more efficiently. Eventually you'll build up that knowledge and muscle memory.

Also, I kept a cheat sheet open for the first six months =P

If you want to learn the shortcuts for Vim, there's a game for that here

I'm not a user so I can't comment but there are definitely some nice beginners guides if you search vim on dev.to. Look forward to some more insights in this thread 😄

I think openvim.com/ is a good start.