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I use emacs because it's competent as a text editor and doesn't try to be more than that. It works well in conjunction with other Unix style tools. It's hackab

I use emacs because it's competent as a text editor and doesn't try to be more than that. It works well in conjunction with other Unix style tools. It's hackable enough to have various plugins built for it that I need to use sometimes. For example, proof general and modes for specific languages. Also, I like that Emacs is extremely polished. When I am working with someone who uses VS on windows they will typically have projects break for no reason and generally a more buggy experience

beatgammit 8y ago
> emacs... text editor... doesn't try to be more than that Enter meme about emacs OS. My big issue with emacs is that it isn't installed by default everywhere, whereas at least vi is pretty nearly everywhere (except windows). Vi is pretty good, vim is better, and emacs is a different beast altogether. However, I'm considering switching to emacs because it's not just an editor. I think org mode is awesome, and I'm playing with it using evil mode so I get the best of both worlds. I've seen awesome renderers hacked into it (LaTeX, PDF, HTML, etc), and pretty much every emacs user gloats about the crazy features that they've thrown in (e g. web browser). People seem to use emacs because it's more than an editor, and people seem to use vim because it's just an editor. Yes, you can do crazy stuff in vim as well, but people in general seem to prefer simpler configs in vim and more crazy configs in emacs. Yes, emacs doesn't try to be an IDE like Visual Studio, but it also tries to be more than a simple text editor like nano or vim.
- mbrock 8y ago
  Emacs can edit files over ssh, even via multiple hops of ssh, so often you don't need to install it everywhere!