I followed this blog for a while and loved it! Strongly recommended for Emacs beginners.
Also, one thing beginners miss is how great it is to use an existing configuration to learn. I've personally used @bodil's config from here[1], it's pretty comprehensive and awesome. If you are a beginner though, you should totally start with @bbatsov's Emacs Prelude[2].
New users who plan to configure and extend Emacs thoroughly might not benefit from using another person's configuration because they will end up reconfiguring that configuration, which I think is more difficult than configuring vanilla Emacs.
During the first weekend that I started using Emacs, I ended up writing hundreds of lines of Emacs Lisp to optimize Emacs for my usage. I had never written Lisp before, and I think using another person's configuration would have hindered my progress.
But I think that reading other people's configurations can be super helpful.
Phil Hagelberg, the creator of Emacs Starter Kit, seems to have arrived at the same conclusion that I have:
I went throught the hassle of not doing what you recommended, unaware, and it is funny how often you look for stuff to simplify Emacs usage and you find bbatsov.
Also, one thing beginners miss is how great it is to use an existing configuration to learn. I've personally used @bodil's config from here[1], it's pretty comprehensive and awesome. If you are a beginner though, you should totally start with @bbatsov's Emacs Prelude[2].
[1] https://github.com/bodil/emacs.d
[2] https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude