What's new in Emacs 31.1
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Emacs 31.1 ships small quality-of-life fixes and removes the old unexec dumper.
The unexec dumper, deprecated since Emacs 27, is removed; the portable dumper is now the only option. A new user-lisp/ directory in ~/.emacs.d automatically scrapes, compiles, and autoloads Lisp files. Tree-sitter grammars can now be installed on demand. xterm-mouse-mode is enabled by default on compatible terminals. The minibuffer completions system gains eager display, live updates, and RET selection of candidates highlighted via M-<UP>/M-<DOWN>. Several font-lock face variables are obsolete; use the faces directly. Child frames now work on TTY frames. site-start.el loads before early-init.el.
What commenters are saying
Commenters welcomed the user-lisp/ feature and the tree-sitter grammar installer, solving a long-standing pain point on macOS. Some disagreed with the article's framing of package-review-policy as pointless. Several users recommended learning Elisp via Emacs's built-in manuals and interactive help. A top comment noted that AI coding assistants now make Elisp customization accessible, though Emacs has no built-in AI features. Some saw Emacs 31.1 as reason to clean up their config and rely more on built-in packages.