1. I often program in the commandline, or via an SSH connection. Emacs is there, whether I have a GUI running or not. 2. Emacs keyboard shortcuts mean I don't

1. I often program in the commandline, or via an SSH connection. Emacs is there, whether I have a GUI running or not. 2. Emacs keyboard shortcuts mean I don't have to use a mouse at all - makes typing and navigating so much quicker. 3. It's one editor for all your files. No matter whether you're working on a markdown, Lisp, Python, Julia, C document or whatever else, Emacs has you covered. And that doesn't just mean syntax highlighting - there's interactive interpreters for many scripting languages available. The only time I find myself wanting a real IDE is when I'm working on a large Java project: I sometimes go back to Eclipse for that. But thankfully, I haven't had to do much work at all in Java in the last few years.