They had me in the first half, not gonna lie. But the whole "but actually you only like what you like for superficial reasons" thing lost me. I really dislike

They had me in the first half, not gonna lie. But the whole "but actually you only like what you like for superficial reasons" thing lost me. I really dislike essays that create false dichotomies just so that they can purport to know why what you do is bad or wrong. Can't someone choose a tool for _both_ rational and aesthetic reasons? In fact, isn't that basically the definition of "best?" And by "best" I (hopefully obviously) mean "best for me/you," not "objectively best." I'm sure the author would take a dig at me: I have a love of Thinkpads of command lines. Regarding the CLI, I won't deny that I love the aesthetic. That's genuinely why I was originally drawn to them. Vain? Silly? Maybe. But I own it, won't deny it, and will never stop loving the aesthetic of a cool ass looking terminal. However. Seeing as the author chose to focus on editors, I'll do the same: I have never found an editor that is all together _better_ than neovim. Sure, this is probably still subjective, whatever, but putting aesthetics and feelings and whatever else aside, neovim still always wins for me and it's not even close. The speed, the stability, the power of a well-configured LSP, the navigation afforded by things like fzf and treesitter, the unbelievably rich and forward-thinking plugin community, and so on and so forth, make it come out on top time and time again for me. Many, if not most, of these reasons are rational. I could say similar things about most of the other apps (cli-based and otherwise, though most are cli-based) that I use, as well. The author also seems to misunderstand that the so-called "cult" of Emacs might exist for more than just superficial reasons. Perhaps a "cult" formed around it because it's actually really good, or at least addressed a lot of people's problems at a particular time, and groups of people tend to form their own aesthetic? I myself have never jived with Emacs, but I can certainly recognize the power of it -- and, yes, the aesthetic, community, etc -- and I certainly wouldn't dream of shitting on someone's joy of it, especially in a condescending "you actually only like this because you think it looks cool" or "it confirms some aspect of yourself" way. It's simple: we can, and probably even should, choose tools for both rational and "superficial" reasons. It's perfectly fine, and one aspect does not negate the other.