I see your arguments as a meld of two separate ones: 1. Very good IDEs — which may be proprietary — do exist and have existed for a while (the Visual Studio ar

I see your arguments as a meld of two separate ones: 1. Very good IDEs — which may be proprietary — do exist and have existed for a while (the Visual Studio argument); and 2. Free Software IDEs do exist and have existed for a while (the Eclipse argument). However, neither Visual Studio nor Eclipse on its own fulfills both arguments. I think your parent was trying to say that their customized install of Emacs does. As for the point about people being able to make a living off of an IDE for two decades ... well, that's a low bar, isn't it? Lots of people make a living off of no IDEs (the Vim argument) for decades. The argument wasn't really about acceptably good IDEs for the general public, rather about IDEs sufficiently good to the parent's standards. Something they can invest in and reap rewards off of instead of merely using it, thus implying a higher standard than just "does the job".