> The “use emacs” prerequisite that shows up frequently when exploring Lisps has been such a dealbreaker for me in the past It's not a "prerequisite" per-se, a

> The “use emacs” prerequisite that shows up frequently when exploring Lisps has been such a dealbreaker for me in the past It's not a "prerequisite" per-se, although I guess you just never stumbled upon the fundamental truth about Emacs. In fact, it's not just an ordinary editor, it's a "Lisp Machine". Of course Emacs is far from the actual implementation of a Lisp machine, therefore the quotes. Emacs feels like a Lisp REPL with a built-in editor, and not the other way around. Once you immerse yourself into the world of Lisp, sooner or later you will realize - Emacs is far from the ideal implementation of a Lisp machine, yet it's the best practical one we have today. Chords, shmords, modes, modality, non-modality, keymaps, keybindings, etc. - that all is just "higher-level interface" you can change to your liking. I consider myself a die-hard Vimmer, never ever thought about switching to Emacs, until one day I woke up with realization that Emacs actually vims better than Vim and Neovim. There's something "magical" about Lisp - coders either love it or hate it with passion, but anyone who accepts it, with all its flaws and powerful features, those who embrace the dynamism, the malleability of the structure - they may open a beautiful world of countless fascinating ideas. And once someone opens their heart to Lisp, either with sadness or with joy they sooner or later realize - Emacs is just the best practical tool to work with Lisp, there's simply nothing better. Even though "the best" doesn't mean "the best possible", it just means "the best today".