The strength of Emacs lies in customizing it to the user's needs. A clean installation of Emacs is not representative of what Emacs can be, but the various mode

The strength of Emacs lies in customizing it to the user's needs. A clean installation of Emacs is not representative of what Emacs can be, but the various modern configuration frameworks such as Spacemacs and Doom Emacs offer a window into their creators' visions of what Emacs can be. And from there, it's easy to slowly transform their vision into your own. These frameworks offer good defaults that lean towards having lots of features packed in, but it's easy to take away everything you don't want. Both Spacemacs and Doom Emacs can be stripped to almost nothing, leaving you with just a standard for organizing your custom configuration.