Why Emacs?

I think there’s very little which can be said about Emacs which hasn’t already been said, except perhaps my story.

Many years ago, when starting a new job, I was faced with the prospect of learning yet another new editor for yet another programming environment. The prospect of starting again from scratch and teaching my fingers a whole new set of keystrokes was so daunting, that I resolved to never do it again. I decided to pick one editor, the most powerful and cross-platform, and most likely to survive the rest of my career. Happily, I chose Emacs.

I firmly believe that as a professional software developer, the editor is a fundamental tool of your trade. You should invest the time in perfecting your skills and mastering it to the greatest extent possible. You should spend the time to understand every feature and quirk, and be completely comfortable with performing complex tasks with it. There are possible analogies here with other professionals and their tools, so pick one of those if it helps you.

I don’t necessarily care about the differences between Emacs and Vim (Vi?) - just that people who are serious about software development pick one and learn the crap out of it. That’s what I try to do, and I firmly believe in the rewards of productivity. And yes, learning Emacs has even made me a better programmer.