Sorry for responding late, but completing the tutorial merely brings you up to the level of using vim. Like, OK, hit C-x C-s to save instead of esc :w to save.

Sorry for responding late, but completing the tutorial merely brings you up to the level of using vim. Like, OK, hit C-x C-s to save instead of esc :w to save. That doesn't really help, it just teaches equally productive keystrokes. You can "rise above" by using emacs but its going to take a lot more than learning a different keystroke to scroll the screen. Learning all the features of your language mode, its debugger integration, integrated refactoring tools, project tool integration, it all takes time, and those are the areas where you get huge productivity gains when you put in the time. I agree you are correct that the FIRST step is the tutorial but that won't provide any performance gains over any other bare text editor.