You don't need an IDE, but for larger scale projects, I find that IDE features do save time. However, with some effort (and some rough edges), Emacs can be con

You don't need an IDE, but for larger scale projects, I find that IDE features do save time. However, with some effort (and some rough edges), Emacs can be configured to do anything a "dedicated" IDE can do. The main timesavers for me are navigation (quick open file, browse tree, jump to definition) and refactoring (find & rename references). Emacs can do all these. You might want to look into setting up ctags, speedbar, syntax highlighting & indentation prefs etc. A quick google finds a couple of guides: * http://truongtx.me/2013/03/10/emacs-setting-up-perfect-environment-for-cc-programming/ * http://tuhdo.github.io/c-ide.html Which both seem quite approachable. I didn't see refactoring covered, but it's also do-able.