Each task has its own tools. You seem to have been using Emacs as surrogate for a certain IDE experience known to you. An IDE is a tool that has been carefully

Each task has its own tools. You seem to have been using Emacs as surrogate for a certain IDE experience known to you. An IDE is a tool that has been carefully geared toward a certain domain and workflow. Like an office suite, it provides everything the target audience needs. It's turn-key ready and all you need, if your work never goes beyond the intended model. But IDEs are not very flexible if you deviate away from that model. On top of that they tend to be quite opaque regarding the internals (I remember VS being very annoying in that regard). Emacs, on the other hand, is basically just an editor. But it runs circles around any built-in IDE editor I have seen. On top of that, it provides extensibility. That's where the fun starts. If you're working in a domain that hasn't got any turn-key solutions yet, Emacs is a good start. Personally, I use IDEs for the work they were made for. But if I just want to edit text or don't want to set up a project just for an "application" that consists of two or three scripts, I use a good and simple editor with syntax highlighting. Anything else would be like using a car to get from your kitchen to the living room.