The Emacs/vi/IntelliJ/Eclipse/Netbeans/Kate/jEdit/TextPad debate is meaningless To the extent that it becomes a religious discussion about which one is the bes

The Emacs/vi/IntelliJ/Eclipse/Netbeans/Kate/jEdit/TextPad debate is meaningless To the extent that it becomes a religious discussion about which one is the best, which happens all the time, I think you're right. However, the exchange of ideas that results can be meaningful. This is especially true of emacs, since there's so much room to use it creatively, but is applicable to all those other editors as well.