That's funny because I think of emacs the same way... it is my editor and Unix is my IDE. The only "modes" I use in emacs are different syntax-highlighting and

That's funny because I think of emacs the same way... it is my editor and Unix is my IDE. The only "modes" I use in emacs are different syntax-highlighting and the occasional visual buffer-compare to unsnarl a particularly awful merge conflict. In spite of being a Lisp and Scheme programmer back in the day, I have never had an urge to extend emacs with anything. I think it simply has the right UX for me. It possibly goes all the way back to me using Wordstar on CP/M as a child, which had a similar buffer-focused UX with control keys to temporarily do some non-text entry. I also nearly always use emacs in X windows mode with multiple "frames" (separate X windows) opened into the same set of buffers and rely on the mouse-driven menus to find less frequent options and commands that I don't keep in my muscle memory. I can get by in non-X mode over SSH but feel crippled, much like I do when vim is the only option on a system. Then, I'll just get in and out quickly to make small changes, preferring to navigate around via the shell/grep/less etc. while I plan my attack on a file.