> I am not going to completely change my editor and rebuild two decades of optimization just to use two Emacs tools.
Fair point on the surface, it's missing the key aspect of what Emacs actually is. Emacs is not just an editor - to a degree it's philosophy is that your computing environment should be malleable. Those two decades of optimization don't get thrown away; they get encoded directly into the system. Instead of learning to work around the limitations of separate tools, you're investing in a platform that can absorb and amplify all that accumulated knowledge. The question isn't whether you want to abandon your workflows, but whether you want to be limited by them forever.
The key insight is reframing it from "starting over" to "finally having a place where all that expertise can compound indefinitely."
I mean, I get it - not everyone wants their editor to be infinitely customizable; sometimes you just want something that works out of the box. Yet I do honestly think every programmer should give Emacs a serious try at some point in their career - not because they'll necessarily stick with it, but for the same reason why everyone should learn at least one OOP language and get introduced to an FP language. It expands your thinking about what's possible.
Even if you go back to your previous tools, you'll understand computing differently, having seen what a truly malleable environment looks like, the idea of a truly personal computing environment - one that grows with you rather than constraining you. Dismissing Emacs as "just another editor" misses what makes it fundamentally different.
I completely understand your impulse (been there myself), but I'd encourage you to keep an open mind about what Emacs actually offers. When you get a chance maybe explore the philosophy behind it. You might discover something unexpectedly rewarding.
Fair point on the surface, it's missing the key aspect of what Emacs actually is. Emacs is not just an editor - to a degree it's philosophy is that your computing environment should be malleable. Those two decades of optimization don't get thrown away; they get encoded directly into the system. Instead of learning to work around the limitations of separate tools, you're investing in a platform that can absorb and amplify all that accumulated knowledge. The question isn't whether you want to abandon your workflows, but whether you want to be limited by them forever.
The key insight is reframing it from "starting over" to "finally having a place where all that expertise can compound indefinitely."
I mean, I get it - not everyone wants their editor to be infinitely customizable; sometimes you just want something that works out of the box. Yet I do honestly think every programmer should give Emacs a serious try at some point in their career - not because they'll necessarily stick with it, but for the same reason why everyone should learn at least one OOP language and get introduced to an FP language. It expands your thinking about what's possible.
Even if you go back to your previous tools, you'll understand computing differently, having seen what a truly malleable environment looks like, the idea of a truly personal computing environment - one that grows with you rather than constraining you. Dismissing Emacs as "just another editor" misses what makes it fundamentally different.
I completely understand your impulse (been there myself), but I'd encourage you to keep an open mind about what Emacs actually offers. When you get a chance maybe explore the philosophy behind it. You might discover something unexpectedly rewarding.