I think one can compare customization against wizards in Studio or scaffolding in Rails. Sure, it's an easy way to get started with whatever: MFC apps, Rails a

I think one can compare customization against wizards in Studio or scaffolding in Rails. Sure, it's an easy way to get started with whatever: MFC apps, Rails apps, or text editing. But when you outgrow hello world application, you'd want much more power. I used Emacs on and off for maybe four years but never customized it. I finally gathered up some attention month or so ago, got through tutorials and now I'm editing everything in Emacs (and this comment too). There is just a lot of accidental complexity in my brain, which can and is successfully automated by Emacs. If you are a programmer, you should be pissed off and outraged by anything that doesn't allow you to automate itself. After all, automation is what we all do -- to get away from all the boring stuff and concentrate on things that are really fun. Like sex. Or running. That's why I don't like GUI: remembering key chords is a way of automating tasks through memorization, and clicking on buttons requires much more cognition and interaction with the screen. And that my friends, is what really grinds my gears.